PAtricia encarnación

Patricia Encarnación (she/they) is an Afro-Dominican interdisciplinary artist and scholar. Her work critically engages with colonial legacies across various socio-cultural layers within Afro-diasporic communities, focusing on the Caribbean, Latin America, and it’s diaspora. Through explorations of material culture, collective memory, and cultural identity, Encarnación challenges tropes of Caribbean and tropical aesthetics by recontextualizing everyday objects, landscapes, and aesthetics from her upbringing.

Encarnación was a Van Lier fellow during her residency at Smack Mellon and has participated in multiple residencies, including MuseumsQuartier Vienna, Kovent Catalonia, and most recently, the Silver Arts Project residency at the World Trade Center. Their artwork has been showcased at diverse platforms such as Documenta 15, the Tribeca Festival Artist Program Award, NADA Art Fair, Afro Syncretic at NYU, and I am New Afro Latinx at MOLAA, CA. Encarnación has been twice selected for The Centro Leon Jiménez Biennial in Santiago, DR, earning the city of Cádiz (Spain) cultural immersion prize and a special invitation to a fellowship sponsored by the French consulate in Martinique as part of the Tropiques Atrium Caribbean art program. They have also received recognition from the NALAC Fund for the Arts.

In addition to their artistic career, Encarnación has engaged in curatorial practices at Centro de la Imagen CDMX, Bronx Museum, ChaShama, WOPHA Miami, and various alternative gallery spaces in NYC, Miami, and the Dominican Republic.

Encarnación received a full-tuition scholarship to complete their BFA at Parsons, The New School of Design, New York, in 2014, and an AAS degree in Illustration and Fine Arts from Altos de Chavon, the School of Design. They later pursued graduate studies, earning a full-tuition scholarship for the Caribbean Studies concentration in Museum Studies at NYU, where they graduated in 2022.

Artist Statement

My artistic practice reflects on the quotidian, inspired by the material culture of the Caribbean. Through everyday imagery, I employ a visual language to both (re) construct and challenge the skewed notions of "Caribbeaness" globally. 
As a feminized immigrant of color, I face these intersections imposed by society by embracing a humanistic and auto-ethnographic research method to interrogate and expose their origins.
Motivated by a desire to dismantle imposed beliefs within the Caribbean region, my exploration is rooted in the nuances of traditional tropical aesthetics, decolonization practices, and a commitment to reclaiming personal and communal histories. Themes such as identity crises surrounding blackness in the Caribbean, epigenetics, limerence, and fostering inter-regional communication are central to my inquiry.
As an interdisciplinary artist and scholar, I explore these concepts through diverse media, including ceramics, photography, and video, offering varied perspectives on Caribbean quotidian objects, landscapes, and bodies.