Montserrat Alsina

Symbols, Metaphors and the Feminine
A Solo Show by artist: Montserrat Alsina

Reception: Friday, March 28, 2008
6:00 PM to 9:00 PM

Music by Tarima Son

March 28 through May 30, 2008

EFEBOS
1640 South Blue Island Av.
Chicago, IL 60608
312/633-9212
efeboscafe@sbcglobal.net

Montserrat Alsina was born in Valencia, Venezuela, in 1962. She lived there until she was 14 years old when she and her family moved to London, England, where she went to High School. At the age of 18, she looses her mother and decides to move to Memphis, TN to go to Rhodes College where she studies Visual Arts, Psychology and Education. In 1984-85 she starts to explore and extend the uses of materials and start to make installations and experiment with 4D possibilities. This makes her be interested in Performance Arts and moves to Chicago to study at the School of the Art Institute. She completes her studies in Performance in 1988. She works with a variety of Medias: drawing, painting, printmaking, clay and installations.

Fifteen years ago, she started dancing with Nahui Ollin, a traditional Aztec dance group which has performed in Chicago, Michigan, Wisconsin, New York, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Colorado. She and her husband are the founders of Colibri Studio/Gallery in Pilsen. Montserrat has always been involved in teaching. At the moment she offers individual and group classes at her studio. She has also won several International Governor’s Exchange Program Grants to pursue her interest in printmaking: etching, linoleum and lithography, which has taken her to Michoacan, Puebla, Tlaxcala and Mexico City to create a network with other printing workshops.

In her work she explores the role of woman throughout the ages in her series called “The Re-awakening of the Goddess”, and her earth installations express her concerns with socio-political issues in the world. In this exhibit she will be showing a variety of work from her portraits of the feminine, to beautiful renderings of nature and her latest paintings of birds and landscapes, as well as the prints she created in her travels to Mexico.