Q&A with Karla Diaz, 2025-26 Artist-in-Residence

Photo by: Aydinaneth Ortiz

The Latinx Project announces the selection of Karla Diaz as the 2025-26 Artist-in-Residence.

In July, Karla Diaz spoke with curator Mia Lopez about her multidisciplinary practice as they prepare for her solo exhibition hosted by The Latinx Project opening in January 2026. Diaz explores themes of healing, family, community, and social justice through socially engaged practices, drawing, and installation. Together, they unpack Diaz's practice and reflect on the urgency to share and make space for artistic practice.

ML: How did you begin to make work? How has your practice evolved?

Diaz: I have always been an artist.  Professionally, I started making work after I got my MFA, mainly related to social practice projects. This came naturally to me because of my experience and background in education, in community activism, in theater and social justice. At the time, I think there was also an urgency to make things happen in the community I lived in Los Angeles that had been marginalized with rare access to art and art education. This is why in 2001, my husband Mario Ybarra Jr. and I co-founded an artist organization called Slanguage which was the site of our studio but also where we organized exhibitions, led programs and art workshops. Individually, I was also doing a lot of performances that had to do with social justice issues such as violence, food, women’s rights, and untold histories. 

At the same time that I was making these social justice projects and performances, I kept my secret practice of drawing I never shared publicly. To me, drawing always has a personal connection and intimacy. It was not until 2017, when I had a stroke that I shared my drawings and paintings with others. This was a very hard decision and a vulnerable place for me. But also very healing because I used drawing and painting as a tool to heal myself physically, and from a lasting effect of my stroke: I struggle with insomnia. You see, the only thing that helps me sleep is painting and drawing every night.

As I continued to practice, and my mobility, speech, hand coordination and memory came back, I realized the art I was making had evolved. Not necessarily technically (because I am a life-long learner and feel like there is always something to learn) but in terms of how I connected two things: my love for storytelling and drawing/painting. I remember that moment of realization. I was sitting at home late at night, drawing some of my dreams. I have been wanting so much to gain my skills as an artist that I felt I had before my stroke, to prove to myself how much I can be the way I was. Then I realized, I could never do that. And thank God for that! I had a different perspective. I was older, healthier,  stronger and more resilient than before. In other words, I didn’t care so much what anyone thought.  Before, I cared so much about sectioning myself as an artist and the things I did and loved into categories and boxes. I don’t know if this was self-imposed or because I was trained in elitist White Institutions in which often I had to choose culture/experience and unique perspective over mainstream palatable images. How do you tell an artist, as someone once told me, “Why can’t you talk about nice things?” I wished all my life that I could talk about only nice things. I am an optimist but my life is tragic and painful and my art has helped me process this. 

As you know, Mia, last year my only brother was murdered. I am still not sure how to exist. I tell you, the simple fact that it took me a year to get the coroner’s report of his autopsy is meaningful. You see, I realized that the hesitation was subconsciously prompted by not accepting. If I got that paper that officially declared him dead, then I would have to accept his death. And how do you visualize such a big loss?

ML: I can only imagine what a devastating loss that has been, and I hope that your art has given you a sense of solace. Can you share more about how your brother and this tragedy now inform your work?

KD: In thinking about my brother’s murder, I started to think about protest. And what it means to protest directly and indirectly. I started to see all the ways in which all my paintings and drawings and the stories I told in them of growing up, of my relatives, friends, of the experiences I had were a form of protest. I realized in some way I have been really interested in this all my life. Even in those paintings that are inspired by surreal dreams or imaginary places, they have a form of critical inquiry into protest. The fact that I am visualizing these people and places, the fact that I am painting them is the act of protest. Because for a long time, these narratives have been erased from history. And to paint them is to validate them.

To give you an example. One of the first painting series I did was the Coyote series (2021) inspired by my uncle’s illegal job of crossing people over from Mexico across the U.S. border. And for years, in our family, we could never speak of his job. I remember how traumatic this was to say goodbye to him every week just in case something happened and he didn’t come back alive. The only reason I decided to make these paintings of him crossing relatives was because he passed away that year in January. In case of fear of legal repercussions. So to me, the personal, uncomfortable and vulnerable story of my uncle is a way to talk about immigration, about family taboos and to show that this experience is valuable. 

ML: That's an incredible story, and it provides such vital context about how you have arrived at this body of work.  Given how your relationships with your family have influenced your identity and worldview, how do you identify? Is there a specific term that resonates with you? Where do you see your practice situated within the larger context of the art world and the Latinx art community?

KD: I identify as Mexican-American. Even though there is a rumor (chisme) that my father was Armenian. I didn’t grow up with my father and don’t know his culture. Since I grew up in Mexico and primarily in a Mexican household in East L.A., I identify as Mexican-American. 

As far as seeing myself in a larger context of the artworld and the Latinx community, I am reminded of the story my wise grandmother (descendant of the Huichol tribe) used to tell me when I was a child. I’m sure you’ve heard about it. The story of David and Goliath. I used to be really intimidated because I’m a petite woman, when tall people would take up space. I’d take a step back. Jump really high to get in the picture. Even come home crying, wishing I was taller. 

“You will walk among giants,” she’d say, “but know that you belong and must take your rightful place among them.”

So that’s how I see myself within a larger art and Latinx context, as David, who might not be very tall and making big waves in the art scene, but in faith I swing and battle, sometimes defeat giants, certainly I can stand among them without fear. Needless to say in my career, I have been contextualized as a painter, as a woman among giants in the Art world, but this is my first Latinx award and being contextualized within this framework. I am honored. 

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About the AIR

Karla Diaz is a writer, teacher, and multidisciplinary artist who engages in painting, installation, video, and performance. Using narrative to question identity, institutional power, and explore memory, her socially engaged practice generates exciting collaborations and provokes important dialogue among diverse communities. Notably, she is the co-founder of the collective and community artist space Slanguage. Critical discourse is central to her practice as she explores social, subcultural, and marginalized stories.

As a stroke survivor, she practices repetitive memory exercises, using drawing as a tool for excavating and retaining information. Personal memories, folklore, familiar iconography of her Mexican heritage, and American pop culture are intertwined in surreal compositions that consider family, loss, and the complexities of the Latinx experience in the United States. 

Diaz was born and lives in Los Angeles, CA. She received an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 2003 and a BA from California State University Los Angeles in 1999. Her works have been exhibited nationally and internationally at institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA; SF MOMA, San Francisco, CA; Institute for Contemporary Art, Boston, MA; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL; Serpentine Galleries, London, U.K.; and Museo Casa de Cervantes, Valladolid, Spain. She has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards from Art Matters, NY, Tiffany Foundation, NY, Riverside Art Museum, CA; and CalArts, CA. Her work is included in the collections of the Perez Art Museum Miami, Miami, F:; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla, CA; and Inhotim Museum, Brumadinho, Brazil, among others. 

Mia Lopez 

Mia Lopez is the inaugural Curator of Latinx Art at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas. She has worked with artists and leading contemporary art institutions across the United States for over 15 years. She recently curated the exhibition Rasquachsimo: 35 Years of a Chicano Sensibility and co-curated the exhibition Synthesis & Subversion: Redux at Ruby City. Lopez has previously held curatorial positions at DePaul Art Museum in Chicago and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Exhibitions and publications she has contributed to include Remember Where You Are, LatinXAmerican, and International Pop. Lopez is an alumnus of the Smithsonian Latino Museum Studies Program and the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures Leadership Institute. She holds a BA in Art History from Rice University and dual MAs in Art History and Arts Administration from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

About the Latinx Project at NYU

The Latinx Project at New York University explores and promotes U.S. Latinx Art, Culture and Scholarship through creative and interdisciplinary programs. Founded in 2018, it serves as a platform to foster critical public programming and for hosting artists and scholars. The Latinx Project is especially committed to examining and highlighting the multitude of Latinx identities as central to developing a more inclusive and equitable vision of Latinx Studies.

Supporters

The 2025-26 Artist-in-residence program is made possible with support from the Mellon Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.