Wednesday, January 31, 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm
Arts Center Lecture Hall | 2400 E. Kenwood Blvd.
Milwaukee, WI 53211 United States

Michelle Angela Ortiz is a visual artist/ skilled muralist/ community arts educator who uses her art as a vehicle to represent people and communities whose histories are often lost or co-opted. Through painting, printmaking, and community arts practices, she creates a safe space for dialogue around some of the most profound issues communities and individuals may face. Her work tells stories using richly crafted and emotive imagery to claim and transform “blighted” spaces into a visual affirmation that reveals the strength and spirit of the community.

For over eighteen years, Ortiz continues to be an active educator in using the arts as a tool for communication to bridge communities. As a highly skilled muralist, Ortiz has designed and created over 50 large-scale public works nationally (PA, NJ, MS, NY) and internationally. Since 2008, Ortiz has led community building and art for social change public art projects both independently in Costa Rica and Ecuador and through the United States Embassy as a Cultural Envoy in Fiji, Mexico, Argentina, Spain, Venezuela, and Honduras. In Cuba, she completed the first U.S. State funded public art project since the re-opening of the United States Embassy in Havana in 2015.

Ortiz is a recent Rauschenberg Foundation Artist as Activist Fellow, a Kennedy Center Citizen Artist National Fellow, and a Santa Fe Art Institute Equal Justice Resident Artist. In 2016, she received the Americans for the Arts’ Public Art Year in Review Award which honors outstanding public arts projects in the nation. She is also fellow of the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture Fund for the Arts (2011), recipient of the Leeway Foundation Transformation Award (2008) and Art & Change Grant (2013, 2012 & 2006.) She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts from Moore College of Art & Design and a Master’s Degree in Science of Arts and Cultural Management from Rosemont College.

The event is sponsored by the Department of Art and Design, with support from Latin American, Caribbean and U.S. Latinx Studies (LACUSL) and the Cultures and Communities Program.