Maria Dumlao

Maria along with Larawan, will juxtapose historical, mythical, and personal images of stories from the Filipino oral tradition with freshly staged and studio photographs. From these photos she will create color-coded multi-narrative collaged prints, a process that both reveals and obscures multiple stories, highlighting and proposing alternatives to systemic representations of colonial narratives. 

Maria is a visual artist working in combined media, including film, video, animation, sound, photography, & installation.  Her work explores individual and collective history as mediated experience. Her most recent work History in RGB combines images of Filipino history, popular culture, mythic folklore, landscapes, and creatures to propose alternatives to the systemic representations ordered by colonial narratives. Born in the Philippines, Maria immigrated to the US with my family at age 13. She received a BA in Studio Art & Art History from Rutgers College and an MFA in Studio Art at Hunter College-CUNY. Maria's work has been exhibited, screened and performed in the US and internationally. Most recently in 2019, she completed a commissioned installation for Auckland Museum and Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in New Zealand and awarded the Center for Emerging Visual Artist Fellowship and the Independence Foundation Visual Arts Fellowship. 

Maria will create History in RGB, an immersive art installation of prints, plants, and filters. Prints are comprised of color-coded images that appear abstract to the naked eye. Viewing prints through color filters, certain images are revealed while others are obfuscated. Collaging images of history, popular culture, and mythic folklore, it proposes alternatives to systemic representations ordered by colonial narratives.