Marela Zacarias
Marela Zacarias works with a labor-intensive process that merges sculpture with painting. She fabricates forms out of wire screening attached to wooden supports or found objects to which she applies layers of plaster to create undulating forms. Through sanding, polishing, and painting, she creates sculptures with the quality of fabric, filled with movement and expressive quality. She then paints the sculptures with original patterns and geometric abstract shapes that are inspired by her research.
Her work is characterized by an interest in site specificity, socially committed history and current events.
Marela Zacarias has had solo exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum; Praxis Gallery, the National Arts Club and at Art at Viacom at 1515 Broadway building all in NY; and at the Brattleboro Museum, Vermont. She has taken part in group exhibitions at the British Society of American Art, Praxis Gallery, Y Gallery, Rush Arts Gallery and El Museo del Barrio, all in NY.
Marela has received large-scale permanent site-specific commissions from The Sea-Tac International Airport, Seattle; Facebook HQ, CA; The William Vale in Williamsburg, Brooklyn; the American Consulate in Monterrey, Mexico. Her murals can be found in Washington DC, Virginia, Connecticut, Ohio, Mexico and Guatemala.
Zacarias has had residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson; University of Connecticut; Storrs; and at the Corcoran School of Art, Washington, DC, among others. She was profiled in the Art 21 New York Close Up Series in 2013, 1214 and 2016.
Zacarias received her BA from Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, and her M.F.A. from Hunter College, New York. She lives between Brooklyn, NY and Mexico City.