CÉLIA ROCHA

I am a Portuguese interdisciplinary artist living and working in Los Angeles and Santa Ana. My lived experience and my interest in activism are the driving forces in my creative process. I use my artwork as a tool for activism, drawing on social issues that have affected me on a personal level, such as my experience of motherhood, the politics of childbirth or sexual violence. My artwork explores universal issues of gender and collective identity, culture, memory and loss, while it is imbued with the feeling of saudade, a typically Portuguese trait roughly translated as a nostalgic longing or yearning of someone or something of the past.

I have used a wide range of media - including painting, installation, social practice, video and sound - but drawing and photography remain at the core of my practice. Influenced by Vija Celmins's drawings, Andrea Bowers use of text and activism and Suzanne Lacy’s commitment to social justice, my work examines inequality and is borne out of a desire to call attention to the often invisible and overlooked issues that affect primarily women.