Artist Statement
Darice Polo is a multi-disciplinary artist. For the past two decades, she has exhibited drawings, paintings, prints and video that explore the intersection of personal and collective history. These multi-disciplinary works have been exhibited singularly, and in dialogue with one another in a range of national and international venues.
Brújula, the independent film she is currently producing, raises the question of why her grandparents emigrated from Puerto Rico to New York in 1927. Through her personal history it addresses the plight of Puerto Rico, and how U.S. colonization has undermined the sovereignty of its people and culture. It tackles topical concerns and through a lineage of storytellers conveys the resolve of a nation to overcome adversity.
Her short film Nature Boy was recently selected by the Film Diary Festival and screened at the Millennium Film Workshop in New York. Other short films have been shown at A.I.R Gallery in New York and internationally at the SEA Foundation in The Netherlands and at the Creative Time Summit in Warsaw, Poland.
Intervenxions and The Latinx Project at New York University published her essay Seeds of Colonialism: Ohio Forces in Puerto Rico on July 25, 2022.
https://www.latinxproject.nyu.edu/intervenxions/seeds-of-colonialism-ohio-forces-in-puerto-rico
She was invited to participate in the Equal Justice artist residency at the Santa Fe Art Institute in New Mexico, exhibiting and working alongside international artists engaged in social practice. Born in New York City, she received a BFA in Media Arts from the School of Visual Arts and an MFA in drawing and painting from SUNY, Albany. At present, she lives and works in Cleveland, Ohio and has been an Associate Professor of drawing and painting in the School of Art at Kent State University since 2004.