I was born in 1956 in Montevideo, Uruguay. When I was of age to pursue a graduate degree, Uruguay was ruled by a right-wing military dictatorship. The study of Art, which would have been my first choice, had been banned from government-controlled public universities, as had most other forms of humanistic studies. In addition to a 4 year apprenticeship with Uruguayan painter Guillermo Fernández, my art education was largely self-directed. I was able to study Psychology, my other long-time interest, at a private institution founded by the Jesuits.

I moved to NYC in 1985 and the following year to Durham, North Carolina. It was there that I started my career as an artist in earnest. In 1990 I was awarded a North Carolina Artist Fellowship and the following decade my work was exhibited in multiple art galleries and museums, both in the US and in Uruguay.

My love for Japanese art and textiles led me, in 2002, to found KasuriHome, a home accessories business that was based on re-purposing vintage Japanese textiles. That pursuit occupied me until 2018, when I closed the business to, again, focus solely on making my own art.

Currently, in the rice-paper series, I’m working with a Japanese paper called tengucho. In its lightest weight, which I often use, it is the thinnest paper in existence. I cherish its transparency, its ethereal quality. Also, because it is made with very long fibers, it is deceptively strong. Playing with it, I arrived at this pleating technique, which allows it to float and opens up three dimensional space. The whole series is based on the exploitation of such gifts.

contact: arocenacatalina@gmail.com