Dhara Rivera
"El sótano y el jardín *" (2000)
"El sótano y el jardín *" (2000)
Sculptor, installation artist, draftswoman, ceramicist. Rivera obtained a bachelor's degree in humanities from the University of Puerto Rico in 1971 and another in sculpture from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 1979. In 1981 pursued independent studies at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. She obtained her master’s degree in sculpture at Hunter College in NYC in 1983. Since 1977 she has taken part in a number of group and solo shows, and she received the Casa Candina Prize (with Carlos Collazo and Adriana Mangual) at the First Biennial of Contemporary Puerto Rican Ceramics in 1988. In 2000 she received a grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation. She has represented Puerto Rico in events such as the Havana Biennial (2000) and in such art fairs as ARCO in Spain (1997). Her most recent work has explored the dichotomy between exterior and interior spaces, freedoms and boundaries, and the ambiguities between reality and imagination. In pursuing her artistic aims she skillfully combines elements to produce hybrids that point to multiple simultaneous references.