Santa Barraza

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Santa Barraza
Chicana/Tejana artist
Founder, Barraza Fine Art, LLC
Kingsville, Texas

About Ms. Barraza

Born in 1951 in Kingsville, Texas, Santa Contreras Barraza is a contemporary Chicana/Tejana artist and founder of Barraza Fine Art LLC, a gallery and studio situated in her hometown. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1975 and her Master of Fine Arts in 1982 from the University of Texas at Austin. With thirty-four years of teaching experience in higher education, Santa Barraza retired from Texas A&M University-Kingsville in 2020. She formerly taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Penn State University at University Park, and La Roche College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and study abroad programs in Austria, Spain, and Mexico.

Her vita reflects a career replete with awards, appearances and lectures, exhibitions, and publications. Her artwork has been widely exhibited in the United States, Mexico, Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria, Argentina, and France. Some of the venues are the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in Chicago, Albuquerque Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Intar-Latin American Gallery in New York City, Kohler Art Museum in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, National Gallery of American Art of the Smithsonian, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Denver Art Museum, San Antonio Museum of Art, Albuquerque Museum, Modern Museum of Art in Mexico City, Santo Domingo Museum of Art in Oaxaca, Mexico, Museum of Print in Mexico City, Centro Cultural de la Villa Madrid in Spain, Center for Interdisciplinary Studies Research of the University of Bielefeld, Germany, Casa de America of Madrid, Spain, among others. In 2012, her artwork was exhibited in the “Women Shaping Texas” exhibition that opened at the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin. In 2014, Casa de America in Madrid, Spain featured her artwork as a solo artist.

Barraza’s artwork is in the following permanent collections: the Museum of Texas Tech University, Mexican Museum in San Francisco, South Texas Museum, Olin Museum at Bates College, San Antonio Museum of Art, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Benson Latin American Collection of the University of Texas at Austin, Art Museum of South Texas, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, Center for Interdisciplinary Studies Research of the University of Bielefeld, Germany, The Benjamin Franklin Research Institute at the University of Alcala de Henares, Spain, University of Paris, France, among others and various private art collectors.

In 2022 and 2023, Barraza was invited to exhibit in “Traitor, Survivor, Icon: the Legacy of La Malinche”, March 4 – May 8, 2022, Denver Art Museum; Albuquerque Art Museum, June 11 – September 4, 2022; and San Antonio Art Museum, October 24, 2022 – January 8, 2023. She also exhibited in “Chicana/o Art Movimiento y Más en Austin, Tejas, 1960s – 1980s”, April 8 – June 19, 2022, Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin, Texas. Her artwork was also featured in “Art in Embassies, Exhibition”, US Department of State, US Ambassador Ken Salazar, March 15, 2022 – March 15, 2025, Mexico City, Mexico, “Unbreakable Feminist Visions from the Gilbert Cardenas and Dolores Garcia Collection,” September 16, 2023 -March 31, 2024, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas, and “Lovers & Fighters Prints in the SAMA Collection,” April 20, 2024 – April 13, 2025, San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, Texas.

In 2001 Texas A&M University Press published the book, Santa Barraza: Artist of the Borderlands, which received the annual Southwest Book Award from the Border Regional Library Association in 2002. In 2008, she was awarded the Heroes for Children’s Award by the State of Texas Board of Education.

Among the numerous awards received by Barraza are the Reader’s Digest-Lila Wallace Grant, Professional Achievement Award from the Women of Color Association, 2008; Heroes for Children Award by the State of Texas Board of Education, 2012; Sueños Cultura y Vida Recipient by LULAC Corpus Christi, and 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award by Mexic-Arte Museum of Austin, and Tejano Heritage Award 2020 by Texas A&M University-Kingsville.