NEW YORK, NY.- Milena Muzquiz (Tijuana, Mexico 1972) is an American artist living and working between Los Angeles and Mexico. Muzquiz' work defies a common language, functionality and classification as traditional pottery or material practice. Educated under Mike Kelley at ArtCenter College of Design and then moving her practice onto the stage as the performance and music duo Los Super Elegantes, Muzquiz now merges her artistic action in sculpture. These objects are theatrical and with strong references to the flora and fauna of her personal environments referencing the tropical climates of Mexico, the rural heat of Sicily and lush Californian vegetation. At the same time the sculptures take inspiration from the world of old master paintings such as the 16th century still life painter Otto Marseus, the graphics of Bruno Munari, the pottery of Bernard Pallisy and the forms of Lucio Fontana. However non-functional the works appear, they are indeed useable as vessels and vases and are a result of an initial frustration of the artist’s with common vases being somewhat unworthy of plants and flowers the artist used to grow and tend to in her garden.

Milena Muzquiz has had solo exhibitions at The Tuk Tuk Flower Studio, London (2015); Travesía Cuatro, Madrid, Spain (2014); Travesía Cuatro, Guadalajara, Mexico (2014); Pantaleone Gallery, Palermo, Italy (2010); Interior Projects, Los Ángeles (2008) and Deitch Projects, New York, USA (2000). Her work has been presented in individual projects at Frieze New York (2015) and ARCO Madrid (2016).

Muzquiz has participated in group shows in the following institutions, galleries and biennials: Peter Kilchmann (2015); 6th Liverpool Biennial (2010); 28th Bienal de Sao Paulo (2008); Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris (2007); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2007); Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and MUSAC, Castilla y León, Spain (2016).

Milena Muzquiz lives and works in Mérida, México.