Bio
Karina Ramirez is a mixed-media artist who explores how color shapes and transforms composition, combining abstract and representational imagery to investigate its expressive and structural possibilities. A significant part of her work involves attentive observation and the collection of materials, strongly informed by local architecture, ecology, and shifting atmospheres. Her work seeks to understand how places are felt, remembered, and carried over time as Mexican Americans. Through her material collection and mixed-media practices, Ramirez explores new ways to enhance her process by documenting her surroundings and family in Los Angeles, California, USA; Dallas, Texas, USA; and San Juan de Rio Durango, Mexico. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing, with a minor in Art History, from the University of North Texas in 2024. She also completed her Master of Fine Arts at Southern Methodist University, Meadows School of the Arts, in 2026. Her work has been exhibited in numerous exhibitions, including the Latino Culture Center in Dallas, Texas, USA (2026), the Pollock Gallery in Dallas, Texas, USA (2026), and the Sapporo Tenjinyama Art Studio in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan (2025). She is a recipient of a Meadows Artistic Scholarship Award, which funded her MFA 26' Program at Southern Methodist University, Meadows School of the Arts. She was awarded a scholarship in the 62nd Annual Paul Voertman Juried Student Art Competition at the University of North Texas (2023).
My Approach
My artistic practice finds familiar ties to locations and seeks kinship with the land and people around me. These ties closely relate to my culture, religion, and belonging. My work reflects my time living in and visiting family in California, USA; Texas, USA; and Durango, Mexico. I come from a family of vaqueros who have depended on cultivating the land, cattle raising, and harvesting for generations in Mexico. This interest in bonds created through family ties and cultural practices is reflected differently between urban and rural lifestyles. A location is a place in time; memories create a sense of belonging and connection. Engaging directly with the land is essential to my methodology. My creative process begins with fieldwork for gathering information through photography and drawing. As I'm traveling to familiar or unfamiliar places, I gather information and memories that inform my work. From those photographs and sketches, I use photographic references to generate a composition and a way to document these recollections. I develop my painting utilizing layers of mixed media, including pastels, ink, graphite, and acrylic. The layering is incorporated to explore the interplay between the past and the present. Manipulating and distorting past moments with painting allows the creation of dictions from memory and incorporates imagination. This exploration has taught me how to create pigments and glazes from clay from my backyard in Texas, rocks from my family ranch in Mexico, and dirt from my grandparents' backyard in Los Angeles. It's a form of communication that occurs when gathering clay, dirt, and rocks, and it explains the connections to the land through physical objects, which helps preserve my memories. Through attentive observation andthe collection of materials informed by local architecture, ecology, and shifting atmospheres, my work seeks to understand how places is felt, remembered, and carried over time. The more I seek to understand how a space becomes a place, the more I realize that home is not a fixed location, but a feeling shaped by memories, family, culture, and the land around me.
Plano, Texas
Los Angeles, California
Durango, Mexico