Biography
Maria Vasconcelos was born in Lisbon, Portugal, and currently lives and works in Connecticut. She received a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. During her time at the San Francisco Art Institute, she was awarded the Graduate Merit Fellowship (2001), the Schmidt Fellowship (2002), and received an Honorable Mention for the MFA Painting Award (2003). In 2003, she was also selected for the prestigious Headlands Center for the Arts MFA Residency Award, and she was recently awarded a fellowship and residency at the Vermont Studio Center for 2027.
Vasconcelos’ work has been exhibited internationally, including at Modulo–Centro Difusor de Arte Gallery in Lisbon, Portugal, and in the Traveling Scholars group exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her work has been reviewed in The Boston Globe, Expresso (Portugal), Artweek, and the Portuguese magazines Attitude and Lux. In addition to her studio practice, Vasconcelos served on the Davidson Arts and Creative Engagement Advisory Board at Davidson College and is a committee member of Women and the Critical Eye at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Artist Statement
My work explores text, acronyms and colloquial expressions that are representative of various cultures that I am familiar with. I am especially interested in examining the chaos that occurs when acquiring a new language. I am fascinated by both the sound and meaning of certain words. Through the meticulous process of reproducing words, I personalize them.
Text is used repetitively in my work, causing the words to become illegible. The continuous pattern I employ is often insistent and abstract, similar to the process of learning a new language. Repetition and color are meant to emphasize the words physical presence. A mantra like experience begins to materialize as the words blend into one another, creating a new rhythm and meaning.
