Zelmira Rizo-Patron

Bio: Zelmira Rizo (b. 1995, Miami, FL; Peruvian descent) has a BA from Cornell University with studies in biology, comparative literature, and architecture (2018), and is an MFA candidate (2025) in Visual Arts at Columbia University. She lives and works in Miami and New York.

zelmirastudio.com
instagram @zelmirastudio

Artist Statement: I approach drawing as a practice parallel to journaling and somatic movement, as a platform to continuously develop, deepen, and expand a ‘conversation’ with my body. Drawing becomes a process of drawing out (v.)—a listening to, releasing, unearthing of pulses, images, information that would otherwise remain dormant. The marks and compositions that unfold, hold a mirror and generate new vocabulary and structures for seeing, reading, and articulating the pressure in my chest, the tension in my neck and back, the congestion in my head. Drawing translates and maps out feeling into form while digesting it.

This drawing also absorbs and rearranges information from external environments and experiences. Earlier works merge ‘self-portraits’ (decomposed text from my journals, figural representations of my body, etc.) into surrounding architecture. After moving to New York, I saw my straight lines and orthogonal structures transform into curves, concavities, and organic forms. I began connecting my body to spaces that invoke Nature/ Mother Earth/ Pachamama, while listening to and following an urgency to ‘ground’ or ‘come down.’ I am now working with the tension and fluidity between these visual languages, the ways they come together and push against each other.

Using drawing as an entryway and anchor across various media, my practice examines the layered ‘environments’ or ‘bodies’ we inhabit, engage with, and build (i.e. human body, built environment, Nature, language, dreams). I look to highlight the permeability across these ‘spaces,’ to consider and experiment how to live more symbiotically at personal and collective levels.

Zelmira Rizo-Patron

Buscando cuerpo I, 2024
Color pencil, acrylic, and oil on canvas
56" x 40" x 1 1/4"
Courtesy of the artist

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Buscando cuerpo (cable a tierra), 2024
Color pencil and acrylic on polycotton over wood panel
24" x 18" x 7/8"
Courtesy of the artist