Margarita Cabrera, also known as Margo, is a Mexican-American artist.
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Margarita Cabrera received an MFA from Hunter College in New York, NY. Cabrera currently lives and works in El Paso where she recently had a two-year exhibit at the El Paso Museum of Art. Her work has been included in galleries such as 516Arts, Sara Meltzer, Walter Maciel, and Synderman-Works. Her work has been included in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; the McNay Museum San Antonio; the Sweeney Art Center for Contemporary Art at the University of California, Riverside, the Sun Valley Center for the Arts, and El Museo del Barrio, NYC, LA County Museum of Art, CA. In 2012 she was a recipient of the Knight Artist in Residence at the McColl Center for Visual Art in Charlotte, NC. Cabrera was also a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant.
Early life
Cabrera was born in the city of Monterrey in the state of Nuevo Leon, México. She moved to the U.S. at around the age of 10, when her family was in search of better opportunities. Her inspiration to become an artist began in childhood. She said she was raised as a “Montessori child,” where she was taught different concepts through sensorial activities and tactile experiences that allowed her to communicate her expressions artistically.
Cabrera is now recognized as successful Mexican-American artist, activist and organizer whose objects and activities address timely issues related to border relations, labor practices and immigration. Turning crafts and their manufacture into the vehicle for socio-political consideration, she questions con-temporary applications of post-NAFTA Latin American labor. Drawing upon local communities, Cabrera orchestrates the manufacture of soft, vinyl sculptures resembling backpacks, bicycles, potted plants, domestic appliances, pianos, and full-sized automobiles. Throughout the process, she works with displaced immigrants – organizing workshops and ad hoc corporations to close the gulf between third world production and first world consumption. In the summer of 2011 she will lead a workshop in Winston-Salem, in which the products will be displayed alongside existing work in this fall exhibition.
Political views
She especially focused on community art collaborations, producing work that has engaged international and local communities in transformative practices. With these works, she created art pieces that serve as cultural and historical artifacts that value and document the experiences, struggles, and achievements of those who have found their way, often through migration and exceptional sacrifice, to new places where they now work to contribute meaningfully within their communities.
Her work mainly focuses on American-Mexican relations and what that personal experience entails.
Style and technique
Margarita's art