Nora Mendoza
Nora Chapa Mendoza was born in Texas and now lives in West Bloomfield, Michigan. She studied at Madonna College in Detroit, learning to improve her painting techniques in realism. Next, she trained under Michigan abstract artists Richard Koslow and Ljubo Biro. Struggling at first, Mendoza started showing at community centers and local malls and eventually sold her art. She later opened her own art gallery, meanwhile working with artists in southwest Detroit and the broader Latino community in the state to organize Latino exhibitions and mural projects. Besides being an artist-activist, Nora Mendoza is a certified elder in Kanto de la Tierra, an intertribal council dedicated to praying for earth’s healing. When not teaching art to Detroit area youth, she exhibits nationally and internationally, and has been recognized with numerous awards, including "The Governor's Arts Award” in November 1999 and the “Wayne County Council for the Arts, History & Humanities, and Visual Artist Award” in October 2011. Engaging the community through her art and teaching impacts her income, time, and even health, but it is necessary: “This kind of community work is really an investment in helping others to grow and to understand themselves and others. I want to pass on what I have learned to those who are less fortunate or less able to express themselves. I am more concerned about our survival and less with money. I want a world that I can survive in, and I do this with color and brush.”
Sweat Lodge, 2007
Migrant Workers in the Field, 1988
La Carga
Lida and the Swan, 2011
Lida and the Swan, 2011
Immigration
Blue, 1987
Gritos de Colombiana, 2010
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