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Rafa Esparza (Performance Artist) is an integrative and versatile artist born and lives in Los Angeles, CA. Earning his B.A. at UCLA school of arts and Architecture. Esparza's work focuses on history, personal narratives and family. Known for his work making adobe and building with it as well as working with the Commonwealth and Council in Los Angeles. Esparza uses his work to shift institutional resources to large-scale collaborative projects led by invited Brown and Queer cultural creators. Receiving grants and awards formerly known as the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Award (2017) as well as the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant (2015).

Early Life and Education
Esparza was born in Pasadena, California and was raised by Mexican immigrants from Durango, Mexico. Ramon Esparza his father teaching him the skill of adobe making as well as laboring with land. With his art he reconnects with his father after coming out as queer as well creating art for brown queer individuals. During Esparza's early 20 twenties he attended East Los Angeles where he grew his interests in performance art. Receiving his Bachelors in 2011 at the School of Art and Architecture, University of California, Los Angeles grew his art skills and solidified his career in Performance Art

Work and Career
Esparza's main focus on his art is expose ideologies, power structures, and binary forms of identity that establish narratives, history, and social environments. In Esparza's art he challenges political social and racial issues in order to create a change and raise awareness. Using mainly land and labor when creating his projects. Esparza has spent five years creating art using adobe, He has laid adobe bricks for his participation in “Made in L.A.” at the Hammer in 2016; created architectural structures, such as in the Whitney Biennial in 2017; and painted portraits on slabs of adobe, like in his solo show at MASS MoCA, “staring at the sun,” in 2019. In 2018 Esparza created a exhibit called For de la Calle (of the Street), where he transformed Project Room into a commons, serving as a site for exhibition, production, and collaboration, with an assembled group of local artists and nightlife personalities working on site with the artist to produce works to display at the museum.

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Awards and Fellowships
1.US Latinx Artist Fellowship (2021) 2. Lucas Artists Fellowship (2020) 3.Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Award (2017) 4. Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant (2015) 5. California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Arts (2014) 6.Art Matters Foundation grant (2014

Exhibit's
1. Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles (2021). 6. Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, CA (2015) 2. MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA (2019)                   7. Vincent Price Art Museum, Monterey Park, CA (2013). 3. ArtPace, San Antonio, TX (2018)                     8. Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2018) 4.Atkinson Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA (2017). 9. The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2017) 5. allroom Marfa, TX (2017)

Reference's
2. https://www.theicala.org/en/exhibitions/18-rafa-esparza-de-la-calle 3. https://www.unitedstatesartists.org/fellow/rafa-esparza/ 4. https://whitewall.art/art/rafa-esparza-creating-spaces-where-bodies-can-be-restored 5. https://commonwealthandcouncil.com/us/rafa-esparza/biography 6. https://www.arts.ucla.edu/single/rafa-esparza-lecture-2020/
 * 1) 1. https://www.queer-art.org/rafa-esparza