Ink, linseed oil, water on paper (12" x 12.5"). First Place Award, Two-Dimensional Category, Sadat Art for Peace Competition: Confronting Prejudice and Hate, The Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development, University of Maryland at College Park (2018) (now held in its permanent collection)

It is often said that oil and water do not mix. Yet, when placed on a surface, they come together forming blots and swirls. One element shapes the other until they find a perfect balance. The blotting and swirling can be captured with ink, forming a pattern, one that I imagine as being ancient, the strength of which lies in the coexistence of materials that have a different density and polarity.

Wood, fabric, acrylic (14" x 17" x 9")

Ink on paper (49.5" x 38")

Held by the District of Columbia Commission on Arts and Humanities Art Bank

Winner of the Juror’s Choice Award, American Landscapes, Maryland Federation of Art (awarded by Joann Moser, Senior Curator Emerita, Smithsonian American Art Museum) (2018)

This large ink drawing was inspired by an old-fashioned map of Washington, D.C.--the large and bulky paper kind that one hardly sees around anymore. I used this kind of map to navigate the region when I first moved with my family to D.C. from my native Bolivia in the 1980s. Its all-encompassing pages laid down the various neighborhoods and roads, going from zoomed out views in the first pages to close ups in the later pages. As the years went by, as most others, I set the paper map aside in the abyss of a drawer, coming to rely instead on GPS, which, for the most part, does not show large overviews, but rather limits the view to one’s location and the few blocks around it. Stumbling upon the paper map after many years of disuse, before even opening it, I wondered if I could still remember what the region’s zoomed out topography looked like. So, I set myself to draw Washington D.C. by memory, laying down inks for the terrain and atmosphere, scratching out the houses and roads with a needle, finding out that I could only recall the beltway, major highways, and the neighborhoods that I have personally traveled since moving and settling in this adopted homeland of mine.

Cement, acrylic on paper (24" x 12")

Cement, wax, ink, paper on wood (24" x 12")

Cement, ink, acrylic, beeswax on wood (24" x 12")

Clay, plastic mesh, beeswax on wood (24" x 12")

Cement, ink on paper (30" x 22")

Cement, ink on paper (30" x 22")

Cement, acrylic, ink, beeswax on paper (23" x 8")

Video (1:49)

Video (1:42)

Awarded the Graduate Award, Visualizing Migration, Center for Literary and Comparative Studies, University of Maryland at College Park (2017)

Aquel Lago is a short video inspired by a childhood memory. Before moving to the United States as a teenager, I used to visit Lake Titicaca often. My most salient memory of this stunning, large mountain lake is looking at the stones under its pristine, blue water. The video is, to some extent, a meditation on that memory, as I experience it today, being an adult, living in a different part of the world from where I grew up.

Video (2:49)

The circular shape in this video is an ink drawing of the internal structures of my eye based on a photographic image my ophthalmologist gave me at a regular exam visit. The sound is a layering of my voice repeating in Spanish the Methodist version of the Our Father prayer, a moving meditation about the landscape, and the body, and my identity.

Video (1:25)

Video (1:59)