This week we welcome Josefina Bahamondes, a visual artist based in Queens who has trained in painting and photography. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Playa Ancha in Valparaíso, Chile; a diploma in visual and performing art administration from New York University; and a master’s in education from Hunter College in New York.
She has lived and worked in numerous cities including Montréal, where her work focused on her immigration process, including the portrait project “Contenders” and the group show “Populart, culture populaire en Amerique Latine” at the Université du Québec à Montréal.
Bahamondes moved to New York City in 2016 and worked in several art museums. She is an advocate for better urban design as a founding board member of the Alliance for Paseo Park. In recent years, she has been working as a bilingual teacher in a public school in East Harlem and studying black-and-white photography at the Bronx Documentary Center. Since 2023, she has been capturing the city with her 35mm camera.
Artist’s Statement:
“My work is related to the daily events I experience and to my internal quest for identity: how I feel in the world and how I confront the world, from a female perspective. I interpret the stories of those around me into works of art: preserving their images, underlining their individuality, and creating beauty from the raw materials they present. My works attempt to show the unique individuality of that person in the face of systems of economy, education, health, religion, and politics that seek to generalize us into a mass.”
See more of Bahamondes’ work on her website and Instagram.
See more of our Artist of the Week profiles here.
