What is my work about?
My work examines relationships between objects, people, and geographic terrain as a means to explore cultural understanding and political structures. This process often involves travel. The social bonds we form with cultures, familiar and foreign, reshape the structures and meanings we see and this malleability is central to the process of discovery. The visual vocabulary of my work shifts as well, oscillating between different levels of interpretation. For example, stone that has been ground into a powder is simultaneously an index of place, an artifact of a process, and a color. Similarly, industrial objects such as drive-belts and concrete rubble can leverage the power of embedded meanings as cultural detritus, the visual power that objects, forms and colors wield and participate in an art historical tradition.
Artist Statement
My studio practice is informed by nearly a decade of organizing social and community art projects throughout the Americas. From Buratovich, Argentina; Habana, Cuba; El Polvo, El Salvador and La Barra de Potosí, Mexico to Chicago, I’ve worked in villages or neighborhoods dealing with large migrations of people moving in or out that dramatically affected the social dynamics in each context. The challenges women face as they relocate for better work opportunities, fleeing political or domestic violence resonate in particular with my own experience of being raised by a household of women that had migrated from Mexico to Chicago in the 70’s and 80’s.
The sphere of my recent work has expanded to explore alternate geographic contexts with large immigrant populations that are in many ways a stark contrast to the Latin American context. Working in Stavanger, Norway in 2013 I began learning about the recent influx of asylum seekers in Nordic countries that historically have been highly homogenous in their racial and ethnic makeup and some of the most economically privileged countries in the world. I traveled from Iceland to the Faroe Islands and then to Norway collecting stones and photographing the traditional sodroofed houses in the region, retracing the general path of early Nordic migration from Norway to Iceland. Pulverizing the stones, I created prints using them as pigment. The resulting minimal and compartmentalized compositions (made up of stone from Iceland and Norway) act as an index of place. Stavanger has drawn large numbers of immigrants in recent years as it is the oil capital of Norway and the presence of growing immigrant communities is palpable. During my time there I observed Romani women on street corners, whose faces are the ones I most associate with my own, selling pamphlets about their culture directed towards Norwegians. Following this experience, in conjunction with Norwegian institutions, I proposed to teach art workshops that would be open to asylum seekers in Stavanger, serving as a platform for immigrants of various ethnic backgrounds to explore their experiences, as well as printmaking workshops to the local art community.
Both my studio and sociallyengaged work activate real and imagined junctions, making it possible for disparate cultures and locations to exist in tandem. These selforganized archives and material excavations allow me to investigate objects and places of personal and collective significance; the potential to hold and reassemble history, while informing current and future perspectives.
CV
Education
2014 MFA Yale University School of Art, Painting & Printmaking, New Haven, CT
2005 BFA The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science & Art, NYC
Group Exhibitions
2014
Vulkansk/Volcánico at Giampietro Gallery, New Haven, CT
The Last Brucennial, NYC
Condensed Matter at Yale University Green Hall Gallery, New Haven, CT
Social Paper at Columbia College CBPA, Chicago, IL
2013
Giampietro Gallery Office Space, New Haven, CT
2012
Local Metrics at Logan Center for the Arts, Chicago, IL
2011
AQ at Renaissance Art Gallery, Haiti Benefit, NYC
2009
The Casera Era, a collective art installation at the 10th Havana Biennial
2008
Glory Guts for Rhinoceros Event, Movement@Judson Church, NYC
We Began There and Converged Here at Arts Iowa City Gallery, IA
LoCurativo projects at SolarOne, NYC
2006
Speed Limit, Redhead Project at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, NYC
Artist Lectures
2013 Critical Practice at Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
2012 Local Metrics. Logan Center for the Arts, Chicago, IL
Grants/Awards/ Residencies
2014 (Norwegian) Directed Independent Language Study at Yale University
2013 Printmaking Residency at Grafisk Verksted in Stavanger, Norway
2013 Schoelkopf Traveling Prize: Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Norway
2012 Columbia College Book and Paper Summer Residency
2012 UChicago Arts Grant for Proximal Distance
2011 Artist-in-Residence at The University of Chicago
2009 Invitation by Cuban Minister of Culture to 10th Havana Biennial
2005 Hans G. and Thordis W. Burckhardt Foundation Prize
2000 Four-Year Full Tuition Scholarship to The Cooper Union
Curatorial/Community Projects
2011 Founder of Storefront Studio, Chicago, IL
An experimental art space in Pilsen, Chicago hosting the art series Proximal Distance.
2004-2009 Founder of LoCurativo Projects
Organized community art projects and informal artist residencies in Latin America.