Bio

Mandy Cano Villalobos is an interdisciplinary artist whose projects span installation, painting, drawing, performance, sculpture and video. She has exhibited with drj (Berlin, Germany), Van Der Plas Gallery (New York, NY), the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum (Clinton, NY), Maryland Institute College of Art (Baltimore, MD), the Ukranian Institute of Modern Art, (Chicago), The Museum of New Art (Detroit, MI), Hillyer Art Space (Washington, DC), Gray Contemporary (Houston, TX) and La Casa Pauly (Puerto Montt, Chile), among others. She has been an artist-in-residence at Vermont Studio Center, Art Omi, Post Contemporary, Wassaic Project, Ragdale, and ACRE. Cano Villalobos received her MFA from The George Washington University in Washington, DC. and currently resides in Grand Rapids, MI.

 

I was raised by a single mother in the army. Childhood was a succession of army bases and new schools. I lacked the locational and generational belonging I perceived as the American norm through TV shows like “Alf” and “Family Ties”. In search of this norm, I became a collector of old photos, discarded books, folktales, broken toys, scratched records, Greek myths and anything that could provide me with a larger, human narrative in which I could situate my own story. These second-hand memories became my surrogate home.

Mandy Cano

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