Laura Villarreal

American, born Mexico. Works and lives in Miami, FL.

Villarreal is an interdisciplinary artist working at the intersection of fiber, painting, and photography. Through the use of embroidery, paint, and textile on paper and canvas, Villarreal creates a transdisciplinary language and poetry inspired by the vivid colors and ancient traditions of her Mexican roots. In the late 1990s, she immigrated to the United States, a process that underscored the economic and social disparities between the two countries. Creating tensions among her multimedia works, Villarreal integrates both environmental geographies in her life, questioning issues of identity, sense of place, longing, and memory.

Villarreal holds a MA in Analysis and Management of Contemporary Art from the University of Barcelona, Spain. She studied at the University of North Carolina, the New York School of Visual Arts, and the Art Students League in New York. Select individual exhibitions include the Instituto Cultural de Mexico in Miami, the Coral Gables Museum, the Embassy of Chile in Washington D.C., the Centro Cultural Fatima in Mexico, and the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles. She participated in Parc Lima, Chaco Chile, and Pinta Miami. She has curated for the Mexican Cultural Institute in Miami, part of the Consulate dedicated to the promotion of Mexican artists in the US, and currently directs art education programs for young audiences in the city of Key Biscayne, Florida. Villarreal’s studio is located at Collective62.