Viviana Paredes has taken her place as an artist in the broader field of glass work from her perspective as both a woman and a Latina. Paredes’ art is a pioneering practice of glass aimed at the cultural meaning of spirituality and nature.
Paredes’ creates elegant vessels that use the transparency of glass to highlight what is concealed within the object and how it’s meaning can be disclosed. Many of her works expose, within the glass the seeds of life, the matter of nature and its preciousness.
Paredes’ installations of light and shadow gives a sense of illumination, transparency and revelation as they reflect healing, forgiveness and self-acceptance. In Paredes’ work we can see how glass in the artist’s’ hands marks place. It signals states the conditions of change, and embeds the narrative of nature within its form. Through clarity of form the artist reveals the inner meaning of the ancient histories and modern conflicts of her shared culture
Amalia Mesa Bains ~ curator, author, visual artist and educator.
ARTIST
Viviana Paredes
LOCATION
San Francisco, California, United States
EDUCATION
2001 BFA, Sculpture – California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA
AWARDS, HONORS, FELLOWSHIPS
NEW! 2021 Fleishhacker Foundation – Eureka Fellowship Awardee
2017 San Francisco Arts Commission – Individual Art Grant
2014 de Young Museum – Artist in Residency
2006 Pilchuck Glass School – Scholarship Award
2005 Recology – Artist in Residency
EXHIBITIONS: View CV – Artist Viviana Paredes
“Viviana’s visually stunning artwork immediately captures one’s eye. Her contemporary sculptures created from glass, bronze and other sources are brought to life with an infusion of organic materials. It is the organic matter that situates Viviana’s artwork in the realm of alchemy. This is appropriate as her grandmother was a curandera, a healer who used indigenous herbs to cure ailments of the body and soul. Viviana continues her grandmother’s tradition of healing by creating artwork that explores the sacred space of ancestral memory, culture, and linguistic history”.
Anjee Helstrup-Alvarez
Executive Director
Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latina American/MACLA