Amalia Mesa-Bains

Amalia Mesa-Bains
Born (1943-07-10) July 10, 1943
Santa Clara, California
Awards San Francisco Mission Cultural Center's Award of Honor
Association of American Cultures' Artist Award
Chicana Foundation of Northern California's Distinguished Working Women Award
San Francisco Mission Cultural Center's Award of Honor
Visionary Woman Award, Moore College of Art & Design

Amalia Mesa-Bains (born July 10, 1943),[1] born in Santa Clara, California,[2] is a psychologist, curator, author and artist.[3]

Biography

Mesa-Bains received a B.A. in painting from San Jose State University before earning a M.A. in interdisciplinary education from San Francisco State University and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. She then worked for the San Francisco Unified School District as a psychologist.[3][4] During the period between 1965–1985 she was the regional committee chair (Northern California) for the exhibition Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation.[3] She has written Ceremony of Spirit: Nature and Memory in Contemporary Latino Art. Mesa-Bains lives in San Juan Bautista, California

Awards

In 1989 she received the San Francisco Mission Cultural Center's Award of Honor, Association of American Cultures' Artist Award and the Chicana Foundation of Northern California's Distinguished Working Women Award in 1990, INTAR-Hispanic Arts Center's Golden Palm Award in 1991, and the MacArthur Fellowship award in 1992.[3][4][1]

Exhibitions

Mesa-Bains's first exhibit was at the 1967 Phelan Awards show that took place in the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.[1] She began creating altar installations in 1975.[1] Her artistic work is often autobiographical, relating to her Mexican Catholic heritage.[4] Although these works take the form of an altar, they are not specifically intended for religious use.[4] According to Kristin G. Congdon and Kara Kelley Hallmark, authors of Artists from Latin American Cultures: A Biographical Dictionary, "Mesa-Bains's altars often honor women who have broken social barriers."[4] Using techniques related to found object art, Mesa-Bains has incorporated "dried leaves, rocks, pre-Columbian ceramic fragments" and other unusual materials to construct artworks such as her 1987 work Grotto of the Virgins, which is dedicated to painter Frida Kahlo (1907–1954), actress Dolores del Río (1905–1983), and to the artist's grandmother.[4]

Collections

Her installation, Ofrenda for Dolores Del Rio (1984, revised 1991), was collected by the Smithsonian American Art Museum as part of the exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art (2013), which highlights Latino Art contributions to American art history[5]. Amalia has remarked the 1991 revised version can be differentiated from the 1984 version by the addition of a picture of the artists' mother, Marina González Mesa, just to the right of the lower central picture of Dolores in the silver dress.[6]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Telgen, page 272-273
  2. ↑ Ruíz, 452
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Saint Marys". www.saintmarys.edu. Archived from the original on 2010-01-17. Retrieved 2009-04-26.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Kristin G. Congdon and Kara Kelley Hallmark (2002). Artists from Latin American Cultures: A Biographical Dictionary. Greenwood Press. pp. 181–183.
  5. ↑ "An Ofrenda for Dolores del Rio". Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved 2018-03-20.
  6. ↑ Smithsonian American Art Museum (2014-01-17), Our America Audio Podcast - Amalia Mesa-Bains, "An Ofrenda for Dolores del Rio", retrieved 2018-09-08
  • Ruíz, Vicki; Virginia Sánchez Korrol (2006). Latinas in the United States: a historical encyclopedia. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-34681-9.
  • Telgen, Diane; Jim Kamp (1993). Notable Hispanic American women. ISBN 0-8103-7578-8.
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