Published November 30, 2021

Featured MFA: Maria Barrientos, MFA '22

Maria Barrientos

An interdisciplinary artist and educator, she received her BFA from Texas Christian University in New Media in 2019 and is attending University at Buffalo for her MFA. In her work, she contemplates the possibilities of then, now, and the unknowable beyond and how we interact navigating through world-building in virtual or real spaces, that generate empathy and provoke entropy. Duality and ephemera are themes used to question reality in the in-between spaces of memory and nostalgia that the work creates. She explores navigating between dream and reality as a way to approach and examine stages of consciousness. These themes overlap in concepts such as time and space, where the viewer experiences a dreamscape or liminal space. Barrientos will exhibit video works in CICA Museum in April of 2022 in South Korea.

Questions & Answers

What's your next project?

Continuing working in documentumentary works and applying to international residencies.

What are you looking forward to most in the year to come?

She told us, projection work on a large scale, maybe projection mapping a building’s facade.

What is your dream project?

Looking forward to graduation and my exhibition at CICA Muaseum in South Korea.

Where do you find inspiration in Buffalo?

Inspiration comes from my intentional interactions I have with my friends here.

What makes buffalo a great city for artists?

There is the great possibility of having collaborative works with the arts community here.