Curriculum Vitae
Gisela Insuaste
b. 1975, New York City, New York
Gisela Insuaste’s work is based on memories of real and imagined landscapes that are precarious yet beautiful. By playing with scale, line, imagery, and diverse materials, she creates drawings, paintings and large-scale installations that map out and emphasize the subtle and quirky topologies of urban spaces: they are shifty, unstable, and ambiguous, and reflect the physical, emotional, and socio-political spaces we live in.
For Gisela, the process of collecting, documenting and interpreting material culture is significant in creating work that is not just an end product in itself but can promote the continuous interpretation of ideas and the interconnectedness of people, places and things. She uses drawing as the basis for this conceptual framework, which allows her to move freely between 2-D and 3-D works and create relational systems that examine the concept of time, history and memory while questioning both individual and shared spaces. These spaces consider the dynamic yet fragile relationship we have with the natural and man-made architectural forms that surround us. Her travels continue to inform her work, where a shift in location, in emotion, in activity, gives rise to new ways of looking and interpreting.
Awards and Grants
2006
Nominated for a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant
MacDowell Colony Fellowship
2005
Illinois Arts Council Finalist Visual Art Award
MacDowell Colony Fellowship
2004
Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Individual Emerging Artist Award
Vermont Studio Center Full Fellowship Award
2003
Carrie Ellen Tuttle Fellowship, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
School of the Art Institute of Chicago MFA Fellowship
Romare Bearden Museum Fellowship, Finalist, St. Louis Art Museum
2000
Cultural Grant Identidad y Memoria: Experiencias Interculturales American Embassy, Quito, Ecuador
1999-00
Richard D. Lombard Alumni Public Service Fellowship, Dartmouth College
1998
Center for Folk-life and Cultural Heritage Internship Research Grant, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC
1997
Dartmouth College General Scholarship
Office of Residential Life Purchase Prize, Dartmouth College
Adelbert Ames Fine Arts Award, Dartmouth College
1996
Joan Sloan International Internship Grant, Dartmouth College
1994
First Year Summer Research Project Grant, Dartmouth College
Exhibitions
2007
Polvo Art Studio, New Work, Chicago, IL
Northeastern Illinois University Gallery, New Work, Chicago, IL
Belcher Gallery, Group Show, San Francisco, CA
Bucket Rider Gallery, cuando llegare, Chicago, IL (upcoming solo)
Bucket Rider Gallery, Inaugural Show, New Work by Gallery Artists, Chicago, IL
2006
Aqua Art Miami2006 , Bucket Rider Gallery, Miami
Pool Boomerang Art Miami 2006, Miami, FL
COMA 2006 The California Occidental Museum of Art, Chicago, IL
Milwaukee International Art Fair 2006,Milwaukee, WI
NOVA Art Fair 2006, Bucket Rider Gallery, Chicago, IL
COMA 2006, The California Occidental Museum of Art, Chicago, IL
Glass Curtain Gallery, Columbia College Chicago, Lo Romantico, Chicago’s Latino/a Art, Chicago, IL
Commerce Street Artist’s Warehouse, SIX FLAGS:POLVO EST. 1996, Houston, TX
2005
Aqua Art Miami2005, Bucket Rider Gallery, Miami
Thomas McCormick Gallery, Into the Woods: Contemporary artists on nature, Chicago, IL
Gallery 400: At The Edge, Innovative Art in Chicago, University of Illinois, Chicago caminando inesperadamente, Chicago, IL (solo essay)
FAIC 2005, Bucket Rider Gallery, Paris, France
Strictly Drawing: An Alumni 2-D Exhibition, Bloomingdale Park District Museum, Chicago, IL
Chicago Cultural Center, Artadia/Driehaus Awardees, Chicago, IL
Three Arts Club, Parallel Utterances , Chicago, IL (with Yvette Kaiser)
Bucket Rider Gallery, Chicago, IL (solo)
Research, NIU Gallery, Chicago, IL (catalog)
2004
Gallery Artists Show, Bucket Rider Gallery, Chicago, IL
Untitled Memories at 6310 m, Polvo Art Studio, Chicago, IL (solo)
Theft, Polvo Art Studio, mini-exhibition, Chicago, IL
Just Good Art Benefit, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL
functionvariable, Barcelona, Spain
The Trackhouse – Yard Sale – 10/04 – Oak Park, IL
Attic Collaborative Project Space – Inside/Out – 10/04 – Chicago, IL
Polvo Art Studio,12“x 12“mini-installation, Chicago, IL
Commonwealth Gallery , Madison, WI
ArtChicago 2004, Bucket Rider Gallery, Chicago, IL
Big Small Town,Up the Stairs Gallery, Chicago, IL
1/Quarterly, DFP-1Q, Chicago, IL
Lill Street Art Center, Chicago, IL
2003
Group Show, Gallery 2, Chicago, IL – (with Paola Cabal)
Clandestino, Bucket Rider Gallery, Chicago, IL (solo)
Faculty Show, Lilll Street Art Center, Chicago, IL
Peter Miller Gallery, Chicago, IL
Anti-Spacesuit: The Dirty Future, Gallery 2, Chicago, IL
Stray Show, Zeke & Neen, Chicago, IL
ARTHOTEL 2003, Embassy Suites, Chicago, IL
MFA Thesis Exhibition, Gallery 2, Chicago, IL
Untitled Landscape, PTDW Project Space, School of the Art Institute of Chicago – Chicago, IL
2002
Home/works, Betty Rymer Gallery, Chicago, IL
Open Studio Night,School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Just Good Art Benefit, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL
Kareem Silva Studio/Gallery, Chicago, IL
2001-00
319 N. Albany Open Studios, Chicago, IL
Banco Central, Casa de La Cultura Ecuatoriana Nucleo Manabi, Manta, Ecuador (catalog)
Casa de La Cultura Ecuatoriana Nucleo Chimborazo, Museo de la Piedra, Riobamba, Ecuador
1999
Mattie Rhodes Art Gallery, Kansas City, MO
La Casa Community Center, Washington, DC
1998
Landspaces, Cadillac Gallery, Kansas City, MO
Memorias en Color, Broadway Gallery, Kansas City, MO
Aureole, Celsius-Smith Gallery, Kansas City, MO
1997
Thesis Show, Jaffe-Friede & Strauss Galleries, Dartmouth College – Hanover, NH
Brace Commons, Dartmouth College – Hanover, NH
Upper & Lower Jewett Exhibit Corridors, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Artist’s Residencies
2007
Can Serrat International Residency, Spain
2006
MacDowell Colony, NH
2005
MacDowell Colony, NH, March-April 2005
2004
Vermont Studio Center, VT, January
2005
Centro Cultural Flores Franco, Riobamba, Ecuador
Bibliography
2007
Chicago Magazine Most Collectable Chicago Artists
2006
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Worthy alternative art transcends pop culture, by Mary Louise Schumacher
La Raza Arte Lation en chicago by Mercedes Fernandez
Dartmouth Alumni Magazine Alumni Notes
2005
Chicago Sun Times Galleries: Exhibit Explores Art of Nature, Narture of Art by Margaret Hawkins
Chicago Reader, Nature Denatured by Tony Adler – Into the Woods at Thomas McCormick
Institute Of Lation Studies, University of Notre Dame, ILS Midwest Lation Arts Documentation Project, Latin American and Latino Art in the Midwest, Selected Biography, Artist
UR Chicago, Culture Shock: Mark Your Calendar – Into the Woods, by Jennifer Geith
UIC, Gallery 400: At The Edge, caminando inesperadamente, Essay by Annie Morse
Art Groupie UR Chicago, Carrie Sandler
Ten by Ten Magazine, Untitled Memories at 6310 m at Polvo, by Terrence Hannum
Dartmouth College Alumni Stories “Gisela Insuaste: Transforming Life into Art”, by Lisa Birzeno
Chicago Reader, “Critic’s Choice”, by Fred Camper “Anti-Spacesuit: The Dirty Future”
2000
Diario Regional De Los Andes “ARTE: Se abrió exposición pictórica internacional”
Memoria e Identidad: Experiencias Interculturales, Gisela Insuaste y Flores Franco, Foreword by Susan Crystal, American Embassy, Quito, Ecuador
1998
Kansas City Star, Culture on the Move: ‘Art Trek’, by Alice Thornson