YTAELENA LOPEZ: My resume, as an artist

Education


2007 - Present Figure Drawing - Michael Markowitz Study.
San Francisco (CA)
2006 M. S. in Mass Communication - Spanish Language Journalism
Florida International University, Miami, FL
2006 Graduate Certificate in Latin American and Caribbean Studies (LACC)
Florida International University, Miami, FL
(2004 Bachelor in Arts - School of Literature [completed coursework]
Universidad Central de Venezuela/ Universidad Católica Andrés Bello)
2003 Bachelor in Mass Communications – School of Journalism
Universidad Central de Venezuela
1997 - 1998 Narrative Workshop - National annual contest - Caracas -
LATINOAMERICAN STUDIES CENTER “ROMULO GALLEGOS” (CELARG).
1995 - 1996 Comics Drawing course - School of comics Lopez and Acosta
1995 - 1996 Painting and sculpture - Cristobal Rojas Art School
Caracas, Venezuela


Honors and Awards/Grants

"Best Contemporary Installation" Award during the Dia de Muertos 2008 at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2008, San Francisco (CA)

CELARG Annual Fellowship for study literature with a prestigious Venezuelan writer, 1997 - 1998, Caracas

Monte Avila Editores. Book: “Voces Nuevas”, 1997 – 1998, CELARG


Bibliography


KPFA Radio San Francisco - The host Darren D' Leon interviewed Ytaelena Lopez (artist), Río Yanez (curator) and Candi Farlice (artist). (Radio 2050) Saturday, October 4th, 2008.

Crosscurrents (KALW) Radio, 10/27/2008, broadcasted also in KPFA Radio San Francisco at 6:30 pm.

El Tecolote - "Día de los Muertos en tiempos de cambio" Sally Douglas Arce, SomArt, Oct 02, 2008.
El Reportero (Local newspaper of San Francisco) - "Bitch, Welcome to America" Edition #46, January 11, 2008
SFWeekly.com - "How To Keep Your Bitch Down" — A New Mission Play Dec. 14, 2008



Professional Affiliations


Volunteer, Artists Television Access

Volunteer coordinator, Mission Arts & Performing Project

Member, National Association of Hispanic Journalists


Exhibitions


- Miscelaneous Flesh (paintings), City Art Gallery, San Francisco April 2009

- The Living Map (Interactive installation with photography of Valentina Vitols), Maison Bleu during the MAPP (Mission Art Performance Project). February 7, 2009

- HOT! HOT!! HOT!!!, Erotic Art. City Art Gallery, San Francisco (CA) February 2009. (Collective)

- Mujeres (Action painting and art work) Maison Bleu during the MAPP (Mission Art Performance Project). December 6, 2008

- 85@85, 3rd annual International Juried exhibition. MiArte Gallery, Coral Gables (FL) December 2008 - February 2009. (Collective)

-Muerte sin fronteras, Dia de muertos exhibiton, MCCLA (Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts). November 2008. (Collective), San Francisco (CA). Her installation "Virgen de la Diversidad" was awarded as a "Best Contemporanean Art Installation".

- Day of the Dead in a Time of Change (Collective), SOMARTS Cultural Center, October - November 2008, San Francisco (CA).

- FEMINAS (first international breast cancer exhibition), Galería Locarno, Talca, Chile October 2008.

- Illussion 7 Dreams/ Sueños (Collective), MCCLA (Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts). September 2008, San Francisco (CA)

- Bitch, welcome to America (window installation), Artist Television Access, January 6 -31, 2008, San Francisco (CA)

- BITCH: pavlovian solutions for the modern home, (video performance), Artists’ Television Access, December 2007

- 2008 ATA (Artists' Television Access) Silent Art Auction (Collective), Receiver Gallery, January 26, 2008

- Actos Criminales (Collective poetry performance with Poetas en Tránsito) - Biblioteca Nacional, Caracas, September 27, 2003

- ANI-MALES (Multimedia installation / Performance), Salon de Jóvenes Artistas, Galería Universitaria, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas July 4 and 8, 2002


Related experience


I am journalist and writer at the same time. I have a poetry book published and I live to incorporate poems in my work. My experience as a online journalist is reflected in the extensive investigation that I use to do as a preparation for some installations, as you can see in the online multimedia map of "Mission, the virtual afterlife" in SomArts.


My concerns about immigration and minorities comes when I moved to Miami, where I studied Journalism Research specializing in Latino minorities. It was there when when I was touched in very intimate way by the drama of immigrants. The sensation of No-Place and their agony under the Ulysses syndrome, besides the poverty, it is a constant in my work.


Webpages:
http://ytaelena.com
http://arteyta.wordpress.com/


(Picture of Adrian Arias during ILUSSION SHOW VII)

About me, as an artist

(Picture of the installation "Virgen de la Diversidad")



Yta is a Venezuelan artist who has been doing poetic performances since 1998. Her first projects were with GrupoGrama, a multimedia art collective in Caracas that promotes new artistic talent and cultural events in alternative public spaces. The most popular was the video-installation ANI-MALES, which was presented at the Salon for Young Artists in the Universidad Central de Venezuela (among other places) and the video performance GREEN-PE, THE INFECTIOUS. Both are available in her website BITES (http://ytapoems.wordpress.com/). She is the author of two books: Voces Nuevas of Celarg-Monteavila (1998) and Pliegues (2007).


Yta studied a year of drawings with the School of comics Lopez and Acosta at the same time as painting and sculpture at the Cristobal Rojas. After that, she dedicated to finish a career in Social Communication in parallel with another in Literature. During that period, among other things she worked as a reporter for culture and making a couple of curatorship.


Then Yta came to Miami in the United States, where I studied Journalism Research specializing in Latino minorities. It was there when when she was touched in very intimate way by the drama of immigrants. The sensation of No-Place and their agony under the Ulysses syndrome, besides the poverty, it is a constant in her job.


San Francisco (CA) was the next stop and the return to my first vocation. Immediately upon arrival (2007) went to study art by Michael Markowitz. It also does other video-performace with my husband called ‘BITCH: pavlovian solutions for the modern home’ on the application of scientific methods for the social conditioning of women immigrants in Artists’ Television Access. In the same gallery, in January 2008, Yta did a pictorial multimedia installation called “Bitch, welcome to America.”


Yta participated in the Illussion 7 Dreams/ Sueños in Mission Cultural Center with a painting performance last September.

Now she is working on the “Mission: The Virtual Afterlife” project, a interactive map installation exhibited during the show Day of the Dead in a Time of Change at SOMARTS Cultural Center in San Francisco, between October 10 and November 4, 2008. At the same time she is doing another installation in the Dia de Muertos exhibition at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts in San Francisco that was awarded as "Best Contemporanean Installation" of the exhibition.


She also participated in FEMINAS: Primer salon internacional de mujeres pequeño formato, acerca del cancer de mamas (First international salon about breast cancer) at Galería Locarno in Talca, Chile.


Yta combines poetry, painting and performance in work focused toward tolerance and self acceptance. She shows common worries -identity, violence y femininity- though her own person, to write a fiction in images where there is no clear the border between public and private issues, between she and you.

¿Ethnic dilemmas, sadomasochism, moral voyeurism, pleasure and guilty? You have to decide whatever is in here or here.

Acerca de mi, como artista

Hola, mi nombre es Ytaelena López y comparto con buena parte del mundo mi pasión por el arte, mi condición de inmigrante y ser parte del género femenino, en el cual se sufre y goza al mismo tiempo.

Mientras otros se criaban haciendo deportes, yo pasé por todos los cursos de arte que se podían encontrar en Venezuela. Incluso estudié un año de dibujos con la Escuela de comics Lopez y Acosta al mismo tiempo que pintura y escultura en la Cristobal Rojas.

El arte quedó en punto suspensivo mientras terminaba mi carrera de Comunicación Social en forma simultánea con la de Literatura y Filosofía. Durante ese periodo trabajé -entre otras cosas- como reportera de cultura y haciendo un par de curadurías.

Fue en esos años (2000- 2003) cuando nació el GrupoGrama, un colectivo de arte multimedia con el cual realizé varios performances poéticos (¿no les había dicho que soy poeta?). El más popular fue la video-instalación ANI-MALES, que se presentó en el Salón Universitarios de Jóvenes Artistas de la Biblioteca Central de la Universidad Central de Venezuela (además de otros sitios más) y el video-performance GREEN-PE, MEGAINFECCION POETICA, que se encuentra disponible en la red (http://almainsolada.blogspot.com/).

Luego llegué a Miami en los Estados Unidos, donde estudié Periodismo de Investigación con especialización en minorías latinas. Allí me tocó en forma muy íntima el drama de los inmigrantes, con su disyuntiva de No-Lugar y su agonía bajo el Síndrome de Ulises, como si no fuera poco con la pobreza.

San Francisco (CA) fue la siguiente parada y un retorno a mi primera vocación. Inmediatamente al llegar (2007) entré al estudio de arte de Michael Markowitz. También realizé otro video-performace junto con mi esposo llamado 'BITCH: pavlovian solutions for the modern home' sobre la aplicación de los métodos ciéntificos para el condicionamiento social de las mujeres inmigrantes en Artists' Television Access. En esa misma galería independiente expuse durante todo enero del 2008 ese y otros videos en una instalación pictórica multimedia llamada "Bitch, welcome to América".

Ahora estoy con ustedes, compartiendo mi trabajo desde la red en:

http://ytaelena.com/
http://tinyurl.com/artyta