The Ohio Artist Registry (OAR) is an exciting opportunity for artists to share their work, connect with the creative community, and establish an online presence—all on a free, virtual platform! The OAR encourages artists working in all art forms, throughout Ohio and beyond, to create a profile, which allows them to better promote themselves and their work. Being listed in the OAR provides artists with new opportunities to share their work with clients, galleries, patrons, and audiences. For more information, contact Kathy Signorino, artist programs director, at kathy.signorino@oac.ohio.gov or 614-728-6140.
Maria Elena González
Chair Sculpture Department San Francisco Art InstituteSculpture/CeramicsOakland CA 94619 United States Cell Phone: 7189648562 Website: Maria Elena González_gallery
Bio
Cuban-born artist María Elena González is an internationally recognized sculptor based in Brooklyn, NY, and the Bay Area, CA. González interweaves the conceptual with a strong dedication to craft in her complex installations and poetic arrangements, exploring themes like identity, memory, and dislocation. Over a career spanning thirty years she has won the Prix de Rome, the Grand Prize at the 30th Biennial of Graphic Arts at Ljubljana, Slovenia, a Guggenheim Fellowship and has been awarded grants from numerous foundations including Pollock-Krasner, Joan Mitchell, New York Foundation for the Arts, and Penny McCall. She has served as the Sculpture Commissioner of the New York City Public Design Commission and has also taught at Cooper Union School of Art, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and the San Francisco Art Institute among others. González’s work was featured at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, FIU, Miami, FL. Her work can be found in numerous public collections including the Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland; Museum voor Modern Kunst, Arnhem, The Netherlands; Museum of Art, The Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI; The Museum of Arts and Design, New York; and The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. González’s Tree Talk series culminated in a traveling solo exhibition organized by the Mills College Art Museum. Upcoming exhibitions: Art of Trees: A New Social Imaginary in the Face of Environmental Crisis, January 21 – April 11, 2021, Gund Gallery of Kenyon College Gambier, OH. Sonidxs: Audio Culture in Latinx Art, October 2020-January 2021, Vincent Price Art Museum, Monterey Park, CA. From Forces to Forms, March 12, 2021-May 29, 2021, Pratt Manhattan Gallery, NYC. Beyond the Sound of Silence, October 2022-January 2023, Lowe Art Museum, Coral Gables, FL
Artist Statement
My Public Art work uses the physical Site itself as part of the inspiration and catalyst to the work. In many of the work samples, “Re: Public”, “Nani’s House”, the process began with a visit to the location, followed by meetings with representatives of the location from whom critical information was procured. Reviewing existing conditions, architectural plans, client concerns, staff input on programming, e.g. uses and activities in the identified spaces, is how a sculpture, installation or similar site-specific solution, will be developed. Memory and impermanence, dislocation, identity, celebration or travel, are themes explored in my work. These themes change accordingly to personal, political and professional circumstances. The wonder found in Nature also features prominently via imagery, format and content I believe that art can transcend a public space and engage viewer’s interest not only in Art but also in actively and positively changing public spaces. The first Public Art Project I was commissioned, by The Public Art Fund in New York City, started a series of community involvements. Primarily how Art can transcend a public space and engage a neighborhood’s interest not only in Art but also in actively and positively changing their public spaces. A brief example of this interaction was how the resident/families of Red Hook Public Housing in Brooklyn, took back the park in their neighborhood from local drug users. Simply by interacting with the construction of my public art project and using the “sculpture” and its surroundings regularly; the drug users were pushed out of the park. “Magic Carpet/Home”, was used to bicycle on, to play house on, and to discuss topics such as travel and building houses. Also the city took a pro-active approach to this particular park in up keeping with repairs to lamps, garbage pick up, lawn maintenance and plumbing repairs. Similar results were noted in other public art projects I did in Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Honolulu. In each of these, a hands on approach meeting with the communities in these neighborhoods, has been a positive result in the success of my projects. The projects were always executed within budget and timeline. My visual arts practice in the fine arts expands over two decades, fortunately being awarded many grants and fellowships for my accomplishments. The dedication, continuity, reliability and responsible execution of my practice, is testament to my qualifications for this project.
