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Daniela Rivera

She // Her // Hers

Visual Artist

Wellesley, MA

A Chilean woman with shoulder length brown hair stands with her arms crossed, softly smiling into the camera.

Photo by Mel Taing.

I am a part and symptom of blurry cultural boundaries, performing on a stage of vernacular cannibalizations. I focus my attention in the migration of cultural objects, narratives, practices, and myths.”

Daniela Rivera’s practice is informed by experiences of displacement, memory, and cultural migration. Rivera builds, paints, and draws spaces that reject categorization and invite participants to share agency and vulnerability.

Rivera received her BFA from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in 1996 and her MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Boston in 2006. She is currently Professor of Studio Art at Wellesley College. She has exhibited in Latin America and the United States and has been awarded residencies at Loghaven, Headland Center for the Arts, Surf Point, Proyecto ACE in Buenos Aires, Vermont Studio Center, and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She has received notable fellowships and grants including The Chiaro Award, The Rappaport Prize, Now + There, Massachusetts Cultural Council Award, VSC, National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, Fondo Nacional para el Desarrollo Cultural y las Artes, and the St. Botolph Club Foundation Distinguished Artist Award. Recent and upcoming exhibitions include: Matucana 100 (Santiago), San Francisco Art Commission, Fitchburg Art Museum, The Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Proyecto ACE (Buenos Aires), and a public art project as part of the Now + There Accelerator Fellowship.

Donor -The Wagner Arts Fellowship is generously supported by Wagner Foundation.

This artist page was last updated on: 03.26.2025

An installation of a painted sculpture fabricated from cement board, a mirror under it shows its reflection.

Tilted Paradigm by Daniela Rivera, 2024. Fresco-like painting on cement board, mirror, sound, and copper point drawing on wall. Commissioned by the San Francisco Art Commission Gallery.

Photo courtesy of the San Francisco Art Commission.

Three large, mural-scaled paintings hang on the walls of a dimly lit gallery. They depict close up views of hands in different movements.

Installation view of Donde el Cielo Toca la Tierraby Daniela Rivera, 2020–24. Oil on canvas, each painting 12 × 30 feet. Installed at Matucana 100 in Santiago, Chile.

Photo by Benjamin Matte.

Four figures walk around and explore a dimly lit room. One bends down to look at the clay upon which they walk. A light from the foreground casts shadows of the figures against the back wall.

Donde el Cielo Toca la Tierra by Daniela Rivera, 2024. Adobe and sound installation. Installed at Sala Concrete, Matucana 100 in Santiago, Chile.

Photo by Benjamin Matte.