María Magdalena Campos-Pons
She // Her // Hers
[ID: A woman poses on a stool in a studio space wearing a long white dress. Works in progress are laid out on a table behind her. A large work depicting rain droplets in black and blue hangs on the back wall.]
Portrait photo courtesy of the artist.
Nashville, TN
2024 USA Fellow
This award was generously supported by David Horvitz and Francie Bishop Good.
_
María Magdalena Campos-Pons is the Coneliuos Vanderbilt Endowed Chair Professor of Fine Arts, Drawing, Performance and Installation at Vanderbilt University. Campos-Pons is the founder of the Ríos Intermitentes International Biennale in Matanzas, Cuba, and the award-winning program Engine for Art, Democracy, and Justice (EADJ). She is a recipient of Columbia University Barnard College Medal of Distinction (2023), an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Science, and a 2023 MacArthur Fellow.
Campos-Pons graduated in 1980 from the National School of Art in Havana, Cuba. She went on to study painting at Havana’s Universidad de las Artes (ISA). In 1988, she attended the MFA Program at Mass College of Art and Design where she focused on interrelated media and painting. In 2017 she received a Dr Honoris Causa from Montserrat College of Art.
Campos-Pons is a descendant of Nigerians brought to the island in the 19th century and Hispanic and Chinese immigrants to Cuba. Inspired by the traditions, rituals, and practices of her ancestors, her work explores the legacy of slavery and is deeply autobiographical, using herself and her family as subjects. She creates historical narratives that illuminate the spirits of people and places, present and past. According to her, she collects and tells “stories of forgotten people in order to foster dialogue to better our time.”
Campos-Pons’ practice combines traditional media, such as painting and sculpture, with installation and contemporary media, including large-format Polaroid photography, video, film, and performance.
Secrets of the Magnolia Tree, 2021. Mixed media: archival digital inkjet prints, watercolor, ink, gouache, gum arabic, Magnolia pollen, BFK archival paper, 132.75 × 90 inches. Photo courtesy of Gallery Wendi Norris.[ID: A three-paneled mixed media painting of a dark-skinned, elderly woman. Large green leaves and white flowers make up the background behind her.]
WHEN WE GATHER, 2021. 5:43 minutes. By María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Okwui Okpokwasili, and LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs. Photo courtesy of Gallery Wendi Norris and Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons.[ID: A dark-skinned woman dressed in a white dress and a white hat that features white mesh detailing. She holds a knotted blue fabric rope and poses in front of a large, elegant building.]
Butterfly Eyes (for Breonna Taylor), 2021. Mixed media: archival digital inkjet prints, watercolor, ink, gouache, gum arabic, BFK archive paper. 3 panels 41 × 29 inches each. Photo courtesy of Gallery Wendi Norris.[ID: An artwork featuring three panels. Two panels depicting red, yellow, orange, and purple flowers are placed on either side of a panel featuring eyeballs of different colors and sizes.]