Wanda Raimundi
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Bio

Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz is an interdisciplinary visual artist whose work pulls from 17th and 18th-century European portraiture, comic books, sketch comedy, folkloric dance, and installation to address race, bias, trauma, and healing. Her work has been featured in venues such as The Momentary, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Museum of Arts and Design, Garage Museum Moscow, Orlando Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Gyeongnam Art Museum, Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico; and at the Manifesta and Performa biennials. Numerous media outlets, including Art in America ArtNews, PBS, NPR, The New York Times, and The Washington Post have covered her work. She earned her MFA from Rutgers University Mason Gross School of Art and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.

She currently Full Professor of Studio Art at George Mason University and serves as a board member for Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art in Virginia, and Pepatian, an arts organization serving her beloved Bronx artists.

 
 
Wanda-Raimundi-Ortiz_Portrait.jpg

For me, controversy isn’t about instigation, but rather, a way to arrest your audience. It’s a way to plant a little bit of desire in their hearts; a yearning to turn the page and learn more about your idea. Ultimately, it’s about creating memorable images.

 
 
 

Artist Statement

Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores the cultural constructs of Otherness, Latinidad, and Blackness through performance, video, sculpture, and drawing. For over two decades, she has centered marginalized identities, addressing themes of exclusion, trauma, beauty, and resilience. Her acclaimed video series Ask Chuleta: Contemporary Art uses humor and satire to critique elitism within the art world and academia through the character Chuleta, a figure who navigates insider and outsider perspectives to challenge systems of power related to race, gender, and class.

Rooted in portraiture and influenced by 18th-century European painting traditions, Raimundi-Ortiz’s work reclaims classical forms to affirm the dignity and visibility of overlooked subjects. Her ongoing Las Reinas (The Queens) series features allegorical self-portraits in which she embodies royal archetypes tied to personal and collective trauma, elevating lived experience through symbolism, regality, and ancestral references.

In recent years, Raimundi-Ortiz has shifted toward sculpture and drawing, partly in response to the pandemic and social unrest. Her Wig Variants and Tree Sentinels series use hybrid, large-scale forms to explore Black hair politics, environmental pressures, and survival.

Her current work, an ambitious processional performance, Vámonos Pa’l Monte, examines Puerto Rican identity, migration, and community by moving through public spaces and engaging participants in a symbolic journey. Works such as Exodus|Pilgrimage and Pietà further address forced migration and systemic violence, combining performance with ritual and collective memory.

These works, along with her Sanctuary drawings of Puerto Rican rainforests, reflect on memory, transformation, and resilience. Across all media, her practice is grounded in radical empathy and a commitment to making visible what is often unseen.

 

Honors & Awards

2024   Pew Arts and Heritage Grant (through Mural Arts Philadelphia)

2024  Sam and Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts Artists Residency

2023   Millersville University 2023 Conrad Nelson Visiting Artist Fellow

2022   McColl Art Center, Inaugural Parent/Educator residency

2021   Skowhegan 75th anniversary alumni residency

2021-25   College Art Association Board of Directors 

2019-21 Art and History Museum at Maitland Artist in Action

2017  Daryl Reich Rubenstein Gallery Visiting Artist, Sidwell Friends School,                      Washington, DC,

2017   Thomas P. Johnson Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Rollins College, Orlando,             FL.2016   Winner, Franklin Furnace Performance Art Grant, Pieta, $5,000 award, 

2015  Finalist, Florida Prize, Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL, juried annual exhibition

 

Selected Exhibitions

  • Llevame Pa’l Monte: The Mountains are Calling and I Must Go, 2025, John and June Alcott Gallery, UNC Chapel Hill, 2025

  • Quiero Ir Pa’l Monte, Staniar Gallery, 2024, Washington and Lee University

  • BIG HAPPY: A Momentary Utopia, 2023, The Momentary/Crystal Bridges Bentonville AK

  • Sanctuary: My Place in the World, 2023, Eckert Art Gallery, Millersville University, Lancaster PA

  • PRIZM Art Fair 2022, Art Basel Miami week, Miami, FL

  • Sanctuary, 2023 Hillsborough Community College, Tampa FL

  • Breathe into the Past: Crosscurrents in the Caribbean 2022, Colorado Springs Fine Art Center at Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO

  • Rembrandt Reframed, Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum 2022, Florida International University, Miami, FL

  • Garmenting: Costume as Contemporary Art, Museum of Art & Design 2021, New York, NY

  • The Florida Prize in Contemporary Art, Orlando Museum of Art 2015

  • Identify: Performance as Portraiture series, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery 2017

  • Project 35: Last Call, Garage Museum, Moscow, Russia

  • Manifesta 8, Murcia, Spain 2010

  • American Chambers, Gyeongnam Art Museum, Changwong City, South Korea 2011

  • Performa 05 biennial, Artist Space, NY

  • The S Files 05 and Artist in the Marketplace 25, Bronx Museum of the Arts

  • Gallery @ Hostos

  • The L Factor, Exit Art, New York

 

Education

  • Rutgers University Mason Gross School of Art, 2008

  • Ralph Bunche FellowAAS 1998 Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY

  • Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture alum, 2002  

 

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