JULY 23 - AUGUST 12, 2007

application deadline: March 23, 2007

MARIA ELENA GONZALEZ, visual artist

Maria Elena González* has been investigating the possibilities of formal sculpture for quite some time. Employing a vocabulary shaped by minimalism and conceptual art, and using simple geometric forms and industrial materials, she creates sculptural installations that are architecturally as well as personally informed. Her reappropriations of architectural symbols, and blueprints, allude to the political, cultural, and emotional coding of physical space.

In 1999, González received widespread acclaim for her site-specific outdoor sculpture Magic Carpet/Home. Commissioned by the Public Art Fund, it was originally installed in Brooklyn and subsequent versions were made for Pittsburgh and Los Angeles. In the summer of 2005, González was a resident faculty member at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She was a Visiting Artist at the Cooper Union School of Art in the fall of 2005.

González is the recipient of numerous awards. This year she received a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. She was a recipient of The Prix de Rome, from the American Academy in Rome (2003-04), she has been awarded grants by New York State Council for the Arts (NYSCA-2003), The Penny McCall Foundation (2001), Cuban Artist Fund (2000), Creative Capital (1999 & 2001), The Joan Mitchell Foundation (1998), The Pollock-Krasner Foundation (1991 & 1998), The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation (1997), Anonymous Was A Woman (1997) and The CINTAS Foundation (1989 & 1994).

She has had solo exhibitions at The Project Gallery, Knoedler & Co., NY, The Center of Art and Visual Culture in Baltimore, The Bronx Museum, The Ludwig Foundation of Cuba, Manhattan's El Museo del Barrio, Brooklyn's Rotunda Gallery and HallWalls in Buffalo. Her work was included in 2001 in Sonsbeek 9 Locus:Focus in Arnhem, Holland, The Queens Museum of Art's "Crossing the Line," and P.S. 1's "Greater New York"(1). Her first solo traveling exhibition "UN Real Estates" concluded at Art in General in NY in 2003, and its accompanying catalog was released in January 2004. This summer she will be presenting "Nani's House" and "The Muse in The Park" a new installation and a public art project with The Contemporary Museum in Honolulu.

*Born-Havana, Cuba, 1957, lives and works in Brooklyn, New York and Basel, Switzerland

Residency Statement

The Residency ACA is open to artists who have specific projects/work they wish to develop. Artists who do three dimensional work and installations are highly encouraged to apply, painters are not. All media can be used to develop your work, including some you do not normally work with. Experimentation is a good thing.

Individual as well as group discussions will be held. Presentations of individual's work at the beginning of the residency, will familiarize the group with each other's work and create a platform for critical conversations. Content, intent, and execution of the projects will be the subject of our individual sessions as well as group discussions.
Your peers are your network!!!

Application Requirements

Please submit the following (Mac OS 10 compatible!!!!):

1. Statement of proposed project/work you will undertake at ACA, and
   what you hope to gain from this opportunity.
2. Up to 20 digital images of completed work, recent and past. If
   working three dimensionally, include details. If working in video-DVD,
   no more than 10 minutes.
3. List of work/images-title, date, medium, and a short description of
   the work/project to contextualize it.
4. Bio, one page max.
5. Resume

Atlantic Center for the Arts is pleased to announce, through the generous support of the Joan Mitchell Foundation, all painters and sculptors accepted into the 2006 Master Artists-in-Residence programs who demonstrate need will be recommended to receive full financial aid to attend the residency program. Artists from other disciplines may apply to ACA's Financial Aid program.