Lorena Molina
My photographs engage with images of the land in El Salvador and the corporeal, incorporating breath, saliva, and other bodily fluids to disrupt, distort, and transform atmospheric conditions within the images.Through these intimate interventions,I blur the boundary between self and environment, making the body an active force in shaping the landscape.Alongside these organic manipulations, I employ a maximalist aesthetics—layering vibrant colors, rich textures, and sensory excess to challenge minimalist visual traditions in photography.Tropical fruits, imbued with histories of trade, exploitation, and migration, serve as both subject and material, evoking questions of labor, desire, and cultural identity.I deconstruct and reassemble plants entangled with colonial legacies to reveal histories of power, extraction, and resistance. If this land has both loved me and marked me, then I inscribe myself back upon it. I do not merely observe the landscape; I become its weather
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Lorena Molina
Molina is a Salvadoran multidisciplinary artist, educator and curator. She is an Assistant Professor of Studio Art Practice at San Francisco State University. She’s also the founder and the director of Third Space Gallery, a community space and gallery that supports and highlights BIPOC artists.
She received her Master of Fine Art degree from the University of Minnesota in 2015 and her Bachelor of Fine Art from California State University, Fullerton, in 2012. Molina has been a recipient of the Diversity of Views Fellowship, Christopher Cardozo Fellowship, (Two) Truth and Reconciliation grant from Artswave, The Idea Fund, ARTPACE International Residency, and The Kala Art Institute fellowship. She has exhibited and performed both nationally and internationally, such as the Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, The Kemper Museum, Southeast Museum of Photography, 621 Gallery, The Carnegie, Covington, KY, Vox Populi, FSU Museum of Fine Arts, EXPO Chicago, The Armory, The Rubin Center, The Beijing Film Academy and all over the piazzas of Florence, Italy.
Website: lorenamolina.com
Instagram: @beingmoli
