Bresler Resident: Kiara Rivera

Artist Statement

The collection of information. An archive focuses on the preservation of records, documents, and memories. As a reflection of my upbringing by parents who fled their homeland of El Salvador and whose records burned in the civil war in the late 1980s, objects have become vessels of reflection. My practice is a means of creating a conceptual archive to mourn the historic redaction of personal records. 

Using materials such as clay, metal, and natural fiber and applying industrial processes and fiber techniques to create bonds of fragility, balance, and resilience. I am interested in tactile sensibility as a method of archiving the intangible through gestures of labor. Through abstraction, I represent the sentimentality of repetitive labor to synthesize ideas of fabrication and objecthood as a means to attach memories and grapple with the present. An active reflection of a sense of loss and urgency to establish an archive.

About the Artist

Born in 1999, Kiara-Maribel Rivera is a Salvadoran American interdisciplinary artist based in Maryland. She earned her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago focusing on ceramics, fibers, and sculpture. Rivera’s practice is a synthesis of fabrication and objecthood as an archival process. She recently attended Praxis Fiber Workshop’s DWL AIR residency.

About the Fleur and Charles Bresler Residency: In honor of VisArts patrons, Fleur and Charles Bresler, VisArts invites applications and proposals from local, national, and international artists for a four month residency at VisArts at Rockville. This residency provides a unique opportunity for a dynamic individual artist or collaborative artist team to create a new body of work, evolve an existing body of work, or develop a project in a stimulating, supportive environment. Studio space is provided free of charge. The residency encourages interaction, dialogue and exploration both within the VisArts artist community and the larger Rockville community as well. The residency offers the gift of time and space to three artists and/or collaborative artist teams each year to experiment and realize new work. The current Bresler Resident Artists present their work in a solo exhibition at VisArts.

Learn more about the Fleur And Charles Bresler Residency.