Daniela Rivera is the juror of New Language: Contemporary Abstraction, a national group exhibition.
Can you tell us a little about yourself?
I have lived in the Boston area since 2003 and no longer have one specific home. I don’t fully belong in my home country, Chile, nor do I belong here. I have two kids, an amazing partner, and an adorable fur baby called Pepita. I am both an artist and an educator, and these two modes of being blur into one in my life. More than an artist, I consider myself a maker and a maker of culture. I work to challenge stereotypes or categories that discriminate, isolate, and violently define other’s identities. When I migrated to the US, I was not able to keep working in the way I had been in Chile. I immediately started to work with ideas of displacement, memory, and cultural migration. I eliminated the representation of the body in my work to turn my attention to place, space, and function. My constant hope is to create spaces for shared agency and to celebrate differences and cultural exchange.
Can you briefly tell us about your art practice?
My practice… Let’s say I draw, and from there, everything else happens. Drawing is the generator of ideas, understandings, criticisms, analysis, and I guess it is at the center of my practice. Right after drawing comes process and material as meaning.
You work in many mediums, and your practice involves a lot of research. How do you go about starting a new project?
Work brings work; making brings more making. I tend to forget this sometimes, but that is how I go about starting a new project. There are projects that take me years to develop, and sometimes I am so deep in the project that once it is done, I feel I have nowhere to go. The amazing thing is that if I look at the path the project took me, I can find multiple new avenues for exploration. My practice is all exploration and material research. I look for processes that carry history or are linked to particular traditions and have cultural ramifications. I try to learn them and then work to change, challenge, or reimagine them to think about writing new stories acknowledging their provenance.
Fresco Exit Sign, fresco on concrete board, 2023
What inspires you?
I get inspired by other makers, people who love what they do, devotional making, and ingenuity. I get inspired by small gestures that carry monumental meaning. But none of these things inspire me when it comes to making work. Making work opens the possibility of making more work in my case. Having time to work is the one thing that brings more making and the possibility of establishing new relations that will bring me new meanings.
What are the most unusual art materials you use?
Some unusual materials include coconut fiber, ash, bullet casings, lard, plastic buckets, and trash. All of these materials have been used by other artists in the past.
What are you working on now?
I have been doing research for a project I will be installing at Mass MoCA in February 2026. The project will start in the fall of 2024, and we are thinking of opening with free workshops to the North Adams community. But this is in the making; things change and become clearer by the minute. I am working on fresco painting, specifically using pre-hispanic techniques. I am also working and learning how to build with Adobe, and I am combining it with fresco processes.
images of work
Do you have any words of wisdom for other artists?
I guess my only word of wisdom is to always find ways to keep making. The beautiful thing about art is that it is responsive and adaptable, so we don’t need much to create amazing work. Tools, materials, and access to a space are great, but we can always build monumental work out of nothing.
As a local artist, do you have any advice for artists who reside in the Boston area?
Let’s get together more!!!
When did you know you wanted to be an artist?
I don’t know how to answer this question. I guess I discovered that I love to learn, learning keeps me moving, and I found art was the field that allowed me to keep constantly learning with no restriction of field or discipline and no restrictions of methodologies.