ABOUT
Host Bios
Patricia Ortega-Miranda was born and raised in Havana, Cuba and is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of Art History & Archeology at the University of Maryland, College Park. She earned her Master’s degree in Art History from the University of Texas at Austin, where she wrote her thesis about the documentary work of Nicolás Guillén Landrián. She has held fellowships from important institutions such as the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas; the International Center for the Arts of the Americas at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. She is currently Registrar and Curatorial Assistant at the University of Maryland Art Gallery.
Kim Schoenstadt was born in Chicago, and currently lives in Los Angeles. She is a visual artist whose work sits at the intersection of architecture and historical research, with a feminist bent. She is known for large-scale wall drawings that weave architecture and sculptural shapes together to tackle issues of constructed realities. Her recent work explores architecture and gender equity issues through the significant yet sidelined architect and designer Eileen Gray’s life and work. www.kimschoenstadt.com
Now Be Here Art
“Now Be Here,” a project started by Kim Schoenstadt in 2016, gathered nearly 1,000 women and non-binary artists together in Los Angeles to be photographed. The project traveled to New York, South Florida/Miami and Washington D.C. and included nearly 2000 artists. Their group photographs visually showed the world artists that are not always included in exhibitions and collections. In 2020, Now Be Here transitioned into a fiscally sponsored non-profit arts organization that hosts a visual directory of national and International women and non-binary contemporary artists and develops opportunities for promoting their work to wider audiences. www.nowbehereart.com