Sofia Maldonado is a Puerto Rican contemporary artist. She lives and works between New York City and Puerto Rico. Her unique dramatic public artworks has garnered enormous controversy due to its provocative nature and colorful statement. Maldonado is a leading contemporary artist that has collaborated with the Nuyorican Movement.
Biography
Sofia Maldonado was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Her love for art manifested at a very young age. It was at the Liga del Arte in Old San Juan where she took her first formal art classes. Later, she attended junior high and high school at Central High of Visual Arts in Santurce. She received a BFA from the Escuela de Artes Plásticas in San Juan, a Master of Fine Arts from the Pratt Institute in 2008, and was a fellow at the Vermont Studio Center. In 2008, Maldonado exhibited at Queens Museum. In 2009 Maldonado created a large scale public art work with Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut. This artist, who shares her life between New York and Puerto Rico, is very prolific and involved in numerous artistic and community projects with a social dimension. Maldonado was selected by the Times Square Alliance to create a mural on 42nd Street in Manhattan in 2010. Maldonado has painted an expansive body of work including skateparks, murals, live painting performances, mix media, and video. Her work is inspired by dilapidated structures of the Caribbean, the Latina female character, and urban subcultures. Her murals, her immediately-recognizable style and her freshness make her one of “the most well-known young artists in Puerto Rico, with an accelerated trajectory who puts forward the themes and work techniques of many emerging artists”, the director of the MAC Marianne Ramírez Aponte adds. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions internationally, including Magnan Emrich, New York, Witzenhausen Gallery, Amsterdam, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Puerto Rico, Magnan Metz Gallery, NY, Ringling Museum, Sarasota, and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her works are held in the collections of the Museo de Bellas Artes in Cuba; the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Rockefeller Brothers, New York, among others.
Book chapters and articles
Fever : Tropical Nostalgias and Urban Anxieties in Sofia Maldonado.
Americas Quarterly.
Daley, Anna. Art21 Blog, April 5, 2010.
Delgado, Cindy. Rubyhornet April 29, 2010.
McLendon, Matthew. Beyond Bling: Voices of Hip Hop in Art. Scala Publishers, 2011.
Morrison, Sarah. 80sPurple.
Nogueras, Celina. Frescos: 50 Puerto Rican Artists under 35. Actar, 2011.
Fever: Tropical Nostalgias and Urban Anxieties in Sofia Maldonado, Museo Arte Contemporaneo de Puerto Rico Isaac Lincoln Gallery at Northern State University, Aberdeen, SD
Concrete Jungle Divas, Magnan Metz Gallery, New York, NY Witzenhausen Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Times Square Alliance Mural Project, New York, NY CIRCA Puerto Rico, Magnan Metz Gallery, New York, NY
2009
Graffiti Gone Global, Sushi Samba, Miami, FL Taller Puertorriqueno, Philadelphia, PA Skate my Patria, part of the Tenth Havana Biennial, Havana, Cuba CIRCA Puerto Rico, Magnan Projects, New York, NY
2008
Pinta, Special Artist Project, New York, NY
2007
The Tropical Storm, Magnan Gallery New York, NY
2006
Sofia... en la isla, Galeria Candela San Juan, Puerto Rico
Purple, Causey Contemporary, Brooklyn, NY Concrete Illusions: Public and Private Spaces in Puerto Rico: Exploring the urban dimensions of the Caribbean, La Galeria de IBA at the Villa Victoria Center for the Arts, Boston, MA
Eames Inspirations, Barney, New York, NY Paper olls, M.I.S.S in association with Fifty24 Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2009
"The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly", Queens museum of Art, New York Girl by Girls, SPacejunk Gallery, St. Maurice; Bayone; and Grenoble, France Hybridity, SOMArts Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA
2008
V Certamen de Pintura Diputacion de Castellon, Spain En Sus Marcuas, Institiuto de Cultura Puertorriquena, Puerto Rico Younity: Heart and Soul, Alphabeta, Greenpoint, NY Graduate Show '08, Pratt Manhattan Gallery, NY MFA Exchange, Virginia Commonwealth, Richmond, VA
São Paulo - Sao Juan, Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico Paint Flash, Montana Gallery, Sevilla, Spain Returned Mail, Galeria Carlos Irizarry, San Juan, Puerto Rico
2005
Mural Painting, Galeria Comercial, Santurce, Puerto Rico Sofia, Cafe Seda, San Juan, Puerto Rico Nothing, Tag Rom, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico Annual Exhibition, Escuela de Artes Plásticas, San Juan, Puerto Rico Juni, Bik, Sofia, Galeria Carlos Irizarry, Puerto Rico Papa Jac Collectable Series, Don Pablo, Puerto Rico
2004
Truck, Sin Titulo Galeria de Arte Contemporaneo, San Juan, Puerto Rico
