Visiting artist and scholar lecture series | Raul De Lara
Event description
- Arts and entertainment
- Free
- Open to the public
Visiting artist and scholar lecture series | Raul De Lara
April 8 | 6 p.m. | Grant Street Studios
Raul De Lara is a sculptor who explores the emotive and storytelling qualities of materials. His research preserves, honors and propels forward traditional uses of wood in Mexican and American culture while combining them with new developments in the global industry of woodworking. Fond of humor, magical realism and the uncanny, De Lara’s work references the visual language found in nature, furniture design and cultural artifacts. De Lara immigrated from Mexico to the United States at the age of 12 and has been a DACA recipient since 2012. After eight years of undocumented status, and currently still unable to freely travel outside the United States, his work reflects on multinational belonging, queer identity and the immigrant experience. He is currently living and working in Queens, NY.
De Lara received his MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2019, and a BFA in Studio Art from the University of Texas at Austin in 2015. Recent solo exhibition sites include The Contemporary Austin, SCAD Museum of Art and Gaa Gallery. His work has been included in exhibitions nationally and internationally at the Tucson Museum of Art, Wharton Esherick Museum, The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, The Armory Show, Hermès Paris, Alexander Berggruen Gallery, The Hole, Honor Fraser Gallery and Reynolds Gallery, among others.
De Lara’s selected awards include the Maxwell/Hanrahan Award in Craft, the NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Craft/Sculpture and Art in America Magazine’s Top 20 Global New Talent, as well as residencies at Wendell Castle Workshop, Silver Art Projects, LMCC Governor’s Island, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Haystack Mountain School of Craft, Ox-Bow School of Art, Penland School of Craft and Chicago Artists Coalition, among others.