Artist talks about her career, life in Brazil
Monica Nador creates neighborhood murals with her community
The Tamarind Institute and the Latin American and Iberian Institute of the University of New Mexico invite the public to hear artist Monica Nador speak about her career as an accomplished and inventive artist who lives and works in a low-income neighborhood on the periphery of São Paulo, Brazil. Nador will speak at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 17, in the Tamarind Gallery at 2500 E. Central.
Funded by a grant from the city of Albuquerque’s Urban Enhancement Trust Fund, Nador was invited to Tamarind to offer a workshop for students participating in Working Classroom’s visual arts after-school program. Assisted by Tamarind students, Working Classroom students will create lithographs, and screenprint banners that will be hung in the two-story front window of Tamarind’s new, high-profile building facing Central Avenue in the middle of the city’s Cultural Corridor.
In Brazil, Nador works closely with the community to create murals on the houses and walls in the neighborhood. She typically uses stencils for these largescale works. In 2013, the clothing line Anthropologie used her designs and colors to create a line of beach towels, swimwear and wallpaper.
The Tamarind Institute is an internationally recognized fine-art lithography workshop affiliated with the College of Fine Arts of the UNM. The institute preserves and promotes lithography through education, research, exhibitions and artist residencies, and is credited with expanding the accessibility to and popularity of printmaking among contemporary artists around the world. Tamarind frequently sponsors programs with diverse populations, locally and internationally.
Working Classroom is an art and education organization dedicated to making visual art and theater experiences accessible to low- and moderate-income students from historically ignored communities. For 24 years, it has offered a variety of programs related to professional development, at the core of their educational philosophy. Programs such as visual art workshops, mentoring, cultural excursions, academic tutoring and college scholarships have transformed the lives of ambitious, but under-served youth.