Natalia Arbelaez is a Colombian American artist, born and raised in Miami, Florida to immigrant parents. She received her B.F.A. from Florida International University and her M.F.A. from The Ohio State University, with an Enrichment Fellowship. In 2016-2017 she was a Rittenberg Fellow at Clay Art Center; Port Chester, New York and was awarded the Inaugural Artaxis Fellowship that funded a residency to Watershed in Newcastle, Maine. Her work has been exhibited internationally, in museums, galleries, and included in various collections, such as the Everson Museum and MAD Museum. She has been recognized by NCECA as a 2018 Emerging Artist and was a 2018-19 resident artist at Harvard University where she researched pre-Columbian art and histories. Natalia was recently an artist in residence at the Museum of Art and Design in New York City where she researched the work of historical and influential women ceramicists of color.

Statement

My work takes the place of a storyteller, from my personal narratives of my Colombian family’s immigration to the research of pre-Columbian South American presence, to my American, latchkey, afterschool cartoon upbringing. Each of these identities plays a role in my work to illustrate a self-portrait of what it is like to be a Mestizo, Colombian, and American hybrid. I combine these stories with research, familial narratives, and cartoon embellishments that create surreal stories, much to my efforts, of the likes of Gabriel García Márquez. A way to autobiographically narrate history with its ups and downs of humor and tears.

I use my work to research undervalued histories, such as, Latin American, Amerindian, and Women of Color. I work with how these identities are lost through conquest, migration, and time, gained through family, culture, exploration, and passed down through tradition, preservation, and genetic memory. In my research I have found value in my histories and aim to help continue my cultures by preserving and honoring them.

I’ve embraced my use of craft and clay not only in my process but also in historical and cultural research. In my researching of lost, conquered, and overlooked communities, I have found that craft belongs in my pursuit. I relate to the role of the craftsperson, often linked to women’s work, working class, and cultural tradition. The material also plays an important role as I examine the history of my ancestral material. Like how Terra-cotta has been seen historically as a lesser material and Majolica glaze brought over from Europe and used as a surface to hide terra-cotta, metaphors I use describe colonization.