Artist Statement
My practice includes drawing, sculpture and photography but is primarily focused on drawings rooted in my experience navigating discrimination, self-acceptance, relationships and sexual liberation as a lesbian living in the Dominican Republic. In 2023, I worked on a series about the Armenian Genocide, inspired by my grandfather’s story as a survivor and refugee, and how wars seem to be a repetitive and permanent pattern in human history.
Somos libres, 2024 21.8” x 31.5” Color pencils on paper
Bio
In 2013, as an artist in residence at the Altos de Chavón School of Design, affiliated with Parsons, I started exploring the benefits of music in education together with Deaf students in a little school of La Romana, located in the East of the Dominican Republic. Ever since I’ve been committed to promote disability rights along with my art practice, creating a nonprofit and collaborating with the Louvre Museum, UNESCO and the Dominican Ministry of Culture. During these years I participated in Yo-Yo Ma’s institute at Harvard University, and was invited to present my work at Yale, Columbia, NYU, Tesla Motors and Sir Richard Branson’s private island. In 2018, I was honored with a Project Zero Fellowship from Harvard. In 2020, COVID motivated me to rethink disability policies in my country and I proposed to the Dominican government the creation of the Department of Disability Inclusion in the city hall of my country’s capital, Santo Domingo. On its first year, United Nations and the National Disability Council recognized the city hall with the highest award for this initiative. This Department is currently being replicated in 12 other cities in the Dominican Republic. In 2022, Coldplay included as part of their global tour the initiatives I started with the Deaf students back in 2013. It’s the first inclusive tour in the music industry. Since 2023 I’ve been back in the studio, working on my art nonstop.
www.mariabatlle.com