Hi! I’m Rica, a socially-engaged artist and writer from Albuquerque, NM. My diverse, multidisciplinary works prioritize mutuality, elevate lived expertise, and often take surreal or whimsical forms.
I hold a MA in public humanities from Brown University, having attended with the generous support of the University of Southern California Renaissance Scholarship for interdisciplinary study. My artistic and curatorial work has been supported by generous grants from 516 Arts Fulcrum Fund and Brown Arts Initiative, among others, and I have participated in residencies at the Santa Fe Art Institute, Harwood Art Center, PASEO Project, and Friends of Orphan Signs. Profiles of my work have appeared in the Providence Journal, Coastal Post, Maine Arts Journal, Santa Fe New Mexican, the Santa Fe Reporter, and Taos News.
Artist Statement
At my core, I am a storyteller. I make all kinds of things in service of narrative world-building: performances, paintings, sculptures, collaborations, installations, writings, wearables, gifts, curriculum, rituals, offerings… Regardless of form, my artistic practice follows the wisdom of desert plants and other ubiquitous features of my home landscape. With the support of guides like yucca, goatheads, litter, roadkill, or dirt, my interdisciplinary projects speak in many voices to murkily envision the tender, enduring worlds that surround us always.
The goal of my artistic practice is nurturing spaces where no one has to be whole, where there is no need to justify your existence or have your shit together. Where you can be intimate like a dog, with co-presence and gesture alone. Though these worlds can be difficult to access amid the daily indignities of capitalism, colonial violence, and oppressive legislation, my artworks are always invitations to somewhere resourceful, honest, and queer; somewhere where we might become each other, try ourselves on, feel unabashedly, or just be for a little while. Inspired by home, loneliness, hybridity, and misunderstanding, my socially engaged projects, performances, paintings, and assemblages are invitations into dreamy and emotionally demanding spaces, surreal portals to hold each other from afar.
Come through. It’s odd, but it’s nice.
rica maestas 