Daniela Rivero
Artist Statement
Lovers in Blue, 2021
cyanotype prints
10 ½ x 8; 8 x 10 ½ each
I see creative expression as a way of engaging with the world around me, or as Paulo Coehlo puts it, learning the “language of the universe”. I approach my art inquisitively and playfully, and am inspired by long moments and fleeting encounters with Ithaca’s forests, rivers, flora and fauna; the beauty and complexity of human bodies; the stories and experiences of my family and community; and intimate moments with friends, family, spirit, and self.
I am still learning new mediums (and hope to do so as long as I continue to create), but I mainly work in collage, drawing and painting, and have greatly enjoying exploring printmaking this spring. Through printmaking’s distinct process of repetition and alteration I engage themes of gender, desire, intimacy, and the body. This series, “Lovers in Blue”, featurues self-curated portraits of some of my closest friends that I have printed, cut, arranged, collaged, and transferred. They are part of a larger journey of inquiring into how socially constructed ideas of gender, sexuality, and ways of relating to others might be disrupted and re-imagined by the Queer and/or Female gaze when lovingly directed back at oneself.
About Daniela
Daniela Rivero (she/her) is a a queer Mexican artist and healer born in the Bay Area and currently living on Haudenosaunee and Nipmuc land. She will be graduating from Ithaca College in May with a self-designed major in Social Movements and Latin American Studies and an Art minor. At IC, she is the Creative Director of Passion Project Online and a BOLD Scholar. She interns at the Committee on U.S. Latin American Relations at Cornell University, and will be pursuing the Helen Gurley Brown BOLD Fellowship post graduation.
A self taught artist until her junior year of college, her work centers her QTPOC community and seeks to express the joy, magic, and love that are essential in our daily life. She combines her scholarship in Post-Colonial Studies, Social Revolutions, and Latin American Studies with her love for art to create socially engaged work that is deeply personal while also drawing inspiration from the community she loves. Her collages were shown in Cultura Ithaca!’s Fall 2020 Latinx Heritage Month Exhibition, Amalgam/a.