Marela Zacarías

Brooklyn, NY & Mexico City, MX

Working with a labor- and research-intensive process that merges sculpture with painting, Marela Zacarías molds window screen and plaster to create undulating forms with the quality of fabric: bodies filled with movement and expressive quality. The sculptures’ surfaces are populated by socially-committed geometric abstractions––shapes and patterns born from the artist’s study of the history and specificity of the site of work.

Zacarías has participated in solo and group exhibitions internationally, including at the Brooklyn Museum, Sapar Contemporary, Praxis Gallery, the National Arts Club, Art at Viacom, Wasserman Projects, the Brattleboro Museum, Smack Mellon, Galería Alterna, the Mexican Cultural Institute, the British Society of American Art, Y Gallery, No Longer Empty, and El Museo del Barrio.

She has received large-scale, permanent, site-specific commissions from Seatac International Airport, Facebook HQ, the William Vale in Brooklyn, and the US Consulate in Monterrey, Mexico. Her murals can be found in Washington, DC, Virginia, Connecticut, Ohio, Mexico, and Guatemala. She has held residencies at the Vermont Studio Center; the University of Connecticut, Storrs; and the Corcoran School of Art, Washington, DC, among others. She was profiled in Art21’s “New York Close Up” series in 2013, 2014, and 2016. Zacarías received her BA from Kenyon College, Ohio, and her MFA from Hunter College, New York. She resides between Brooklyn, Seattle, and Mexico City, and is represented by Sapar Contemporary in New York and Galería Alterna in Mexico City.