Athena Solan Apodaca
About Athena
Bio:
I was born and raised in Maryland. I am working towards my MFA in Studio Art at the University of Arizona. I have a passion for exhibition design and social practice, which has become a part of my art practice as well. I am dual enrolled in the Graduate Museum Studies Certificate Program to learn more about museum and gallery systems, along with their various approaches to public engagement. I believe that equitable access to education, including art and cultural studies, is extremely important.
Artist Statement:
My artwork investigates the transformative potential of behavior change through liminal spaces of rumination and rupture. Through a process of anticonformity, my work maps social landscapes and psychological relationships within them. I approach artmaking with non-traditional applications using a sewing machine for permanent marks while sewing through painted fabrics or various paper surfaces. The psychological excavations and reconstructions I create have a low carbon footprint reflecting my compassionate desire for an equal distribution of resources and welfare. I often include domestically sourced fabrics or ephemera that are sutured to other well-lived materials, leaving tails of thread exposed as a reminder of the fragile nature of lived experience.