Adelina Ruvalcaba ( She/Her )

My work is rooted in rediscovering identity, ancestry, and the intimate role of domestic labor. As a Latina artist, I draw inspiration from traditional cuisines in my childhood and the intensive processes required to produce such loving, flavorful meals. Through my practice, I seek to reconnect with humanity’s ancient past as a way of exploring my own understanding of what makes me human. I am an amalgamation of every ancestor who came before me. From their tears to their smiles, to their broad shoulders to their curly hair. I carry pieces of them within me, just as the grandmothers who came before me did. My creative practice speaks to the act of recontextualizing cultural materials, mirroring the labor that extends from the kitchen into the soul. This is my way of immortalizing precious memories and cultural knowledge in clay before they are lost to time. Take a moment and absorb the labor of love from the kitchen.

Adelina Ruvalcaba is a Merit Scholar and alumna of Willamette University, Pacific Northwest College of Art. After earning her MFA degree in Visual Studies, she set out to establish her career in academia as an art instructor. She graduated from California State University, Fresno with her B.A. in 2021 and has a background in Art History. Born and raised in the Central Valley of California to Mexican and Puerto Rican parentage, most of her practice is heavily influenced by her cultural background, identity, and familial upbringing. Adelina’s art highlights the delicate relationship between cuisine and domestic labor. She explores the immortalization of her culture through her ceramic fossils, where she embeds cultural ingredients into clay and burns them in a kiln.