Past Art Residents

 Andrea Gardner

Andrea Gardner completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the University of California at Santa Cruz and a Master of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of Iowa. She has lived in numerous places including Montana, New York City, Rome, Italy and since 1995 has lived in Wanganui, New Zealand. She works primarily in photography and mixed media sculpture. She exhibits regularly and has work in the collections of The Dowse Art Museum, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, the Sarjeant Gallery and the James Wallace Trust. Because of her ongoing love of Latin American culture she has also completed art residencies at Casa Tres Patios in Medellin, Colombia and RAT in Mexico City. In Cochabamba she designed art activities for school groups visiting the Museum of Natural History.

Tebo (Diego Estebo)

I have lived in Galicia since I was 6 years old, I studied Graphic Advertising and Illustration in Vigo and A Coruña, respectively. In 2006, I moved to Madrid, where I have lived until the present. I combine work as graphic and web design with personal projects and commissions Illustration. Usually I publish my work under two names, Diego Estebo and Tebo. As the first one I use a style similar to comics and I´ve worked several years with the jazz label Free Code, editorial Aristas Martinez, Canjazz festival and magazines like Fiat Lux, Números Rojos and El Malpensante.

Currently, I have decided to focus on the work published as Tebo, particularly in the Codes project, which is a travelling one. The first phase started in Spain, the second phase took place in Gujarat, India, and the third one is being developed here in Cochabamba. More about Tebo and the project Codes here.

Gabriel Roberts

Born 1986 in Buffalo, New York, Gabriel grew up in Sacramento, California and studied ceramics at UC Davis.  He took up landscape painting in 2009 after a summer working with Stanley Lewis at the Chautauqua School of Art.  Since, Gabriel has lived in California, Colorado, and Vermont, dedicating himself to drawing, painting, producing the “Painting Pictures” podcast, and working as a carpenter.  Gabriel and his wife Ailynne spent winter 2016 with Sustainable Bolivia, and will travel to México in 2017.  He believes in the tradition of painting and that Truth is Beauty.  More at http://gaberobertsart.com

Thomas (Mac) MacGregor

Thomas (Mac) MacGregor, graduated Edinburgh college in 1999 of Art with plenty of enthusiasm and bad sense of direction. In August of 2005 he met an amazing girl (Miranda) who was planning a stay in Cochabamba for fieldwork so Mac decided to go too. He landed on his feet, found Erik and sustainable Bolivia, then a studio and Gallery space in Caja Verde; through this he got to know Orlando and Alejandra. Mac and Miranda bought Boris, the dog, and our life was complete. Nearly two years down the line Mac says his life is so much richer. He has three decent Solo exhibitions under his belt, a huge number of friends and contacts and the memory of the experience of a lifetime. Its not the end either… as Mac continues to work with Erik and the team on new Arts residency project and, as soon as humanly possible, Mac will be back for another exhibition and to continue Orlando’s search for the best Guts in town. Through SB Mac has a network of friends across the globe and plans to be sleeping on their sofas soon.

Mirka Farabegoli
Mirka Farabegoli enrolled in the ArtEZ Academy (Arnhem, the Netherlands) in 2005. As a fine-arts student she explored several disciplines, including audiovisual art, photography, drawing and printmaking. In 2008 she spent three months studying at the fine arts department of the Universidad Castilla la Mancha in Cuenca, Spain, focusing mainly on etching. She graduated from the ArtEZ academy in 2009, specializing in drawing and printmaking. After her graduation she was nominated for several “new talent” awards, including the ArtOlive award in Amsterdam and the ‘Aanzet! Award’. She’s currently preparing for her solo exhibition in which the experience of living and working as a volunteer in Bolivia will have a significant role. She’s been volunteering at Martadero, a Cochabamba based cultural and arts centre, working alongside two Artists from La Paz, on a large mural.  More information on Mirka’s work can be found here.

Karolina Magnusson-Murray
Karolina Magnusson-Murray graduated in 2008 from Nottingham Trent University with a BA Hons in Fine Art. After university she moved to London where she has been based for the last 2 years. As well as being actively involved in the Guerrilla Gardening movement Karolina has taken part in many different art events in and around London, inside and outside the gallery walls. Karolina creates ephemeral work using organic material, mixed media and paint to create small installations. The work that she creates is always transient and her work deals with various issues, the most prominent being society’s difficulty in accepting change, decay and death. While she was at Sustainable Bolivia, she created a sculpture out of sugar for her first solo Exhibition here. She developed a keen interest in the indigenous culture and their traditions, especially in their textiles which you could see influenced her work. She also spent 3 days a week working at Pai Tarpuy, making an environmentally conscious mural with the children there and she misses them very much. Karolina enjoyed her time immensely and was sad to leave, not only the friends at Sustainable but also the Bolivian friends she made.

Nicole Kircher
Nicole Kircher graduated with a BFA from Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, Massachusetts, USA in 2001 and with a MA from Johnson State College in Johnson, Vermont, USA in 2007. Nicole works primarily as a painter, printmaker, and photographer. She has exhibited mostly in New England and has been awarded grants and fellowships to attend residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and at Sustainable Bolivia. She has spent the past few years working as an art educator and has had the great fortune to help cultivate the visual expression of her students ranging in age from Pre-Kindergarten to adult. Nicole has thoroughly enjoyed her time as an art resident in the fantastic city of Cochabamba, Bolivia and will greatly miss the food, the lovely vegetation, and most of all the Cochabambinos and the inspirational crew at Sustainable Bolivia.

Emilie Boyard
Emilie was born the 11^th of February in Corsica. She studied graphics and animation at Supinfocom in Arles, France, and graduated as a Digital film Director in June 2004. While at Supinfocom, Emilie created the animation for the short movie in full 3D named Loop that screened in many festivals and received much acclaim (Annecy, Seoul film festival, Onedotzero..etc..). The following year, she moved to London to work as CG Artist at the Studio Aka. While in London, 2 years, Emilie worked in commercial animation for production companies such as The Mill, Nexus Productions and Blue Zoo. In February 2006, she relocated to Sydney (AUS) where she started working as 3D artist at Animal Logic for the Cartoon Network department. Emilie started then to work as free lancer artist, most of the time as art director or compositor (Bazmark films, Cutting edge, Collider…). In addition to commercial projects, she began producing her own visual projects; (Sea Song an illustrated book, Kids a music video). During her time in Cochabamba, Emilie worked with Educar Es Fiesta in addition to working on her own art. Please see her website for work samples and more information by clicking here.

Johannes Bierling
Johannes was born in 1954 in Oberammergau, Germany where he attended woodcarving school from 1972 – 1975. He then attended art school in Karlsruhe from 1978 – 1984 and spent a year abroad at the St. Martin School of Art in 1980. Since 1985 he has been living and working in Freibrug, Germany. His work has been displayed across Europe, including MaGu in Hallefors, Sweden. His primary medium is wood and his sculptures and installations make for large-scale exhibitions. While in Cochabamba in 2011, Johannes shared photos of his past exhibitions and his film “Sculpture Space” to demonstrate his creative process, which represents his style — one that tends toward simple forms, circles, angles, forms, and linkage. Johannes likens the effect of his work to architecture, intending “to fascinate the eye and force it to reconsider space.” As part of his residency with SB, Johannes exhibited sketches at La Troje, a culture center in Cochabamba. You can view examples of his work at his website.

Cynthia Ord
Cynthia is a writer based in Denver, Colorado. She first tried her hand at travel prose in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala where she happened upon a job as stand-in editor of a street magazine for foreigners called XelaWho. After completing a Masters degree in tourism development, she just kept writing about travel. Her current position as contributing editor at The Travel Word was the prize of a writing contest, and she also contributes to other high profile travel publications online such as Matador, Bootsnall, Trazzler and Gadling. To sound like a practical person, she mentions her media and communications work for small travel businesses worldwide. In three months as resident writer in Cochabamba, she wrote five posts for the Sustainable Bolivia blog and hula hooped with the kids at Performing Life. Her Spanish is pretty good, especially when reading aloud from any printed material she can find in the calle. You can see a portfolio of her writing here.

Svetlana Kondakova
Svetlana was born in Russia, where she lived until she was eight years old, then moved to Germany very shortly until settling permanently in Scotland with her family. She studied drawing and painting at the Edinburgh College of Art, spending a semester abroad as an Erasmus exchange student in Greece at the Athens School of Fine Art. In Athens, Svetlana set up a group exhibition and returned six months later to arrange two more shows — one solo and one collaborative. While in Greece, she became enamored of Greek mythology and her work reflected her personal modern interpretation of classic myths. She continued to arrange and participate in various exhibitions during her final year in art school and signed with an agent after her degree show in June 2011. Svetlana joined Sustainable Bolivia to explore Bolivian culture and grow both as an artist and a person. You can view Svetlana’s work at her website here.

Surya de Wit
Surya graduated with a bachelor in fine arts and a minor in film from ArtEZ academy (Arnhem, the Netherlands). After graduating she participated in a number of different exhibitions throughout the Netherlands and Northern Ireland. Surya mostly works with traditional painting and drawing techniques, but additionally incorporates an inexhaustible amount of unconventional materials to add structure and tangibility to her artwork.  In both 2012 and 2013 Surya spent time in Cochabamba as sustainable Bolivia’s art resident.  During her time in Bolivia she worked with a number of volunteer organizations and participated in various cultural initiatives; letting the Bolivian culture inspire and influence her work. She has a long standing admiration for the textile world which grew even stronger with her experience in Bolivia. You can access her work by visiting her website here.

Maggie Cassaro
Maggie is an award-winning artist from Louisville, KY, USA. She is most noted for her works in watercolor, but has also successfully entered the arenas of oil painting and sculpture. Maggie has an extensive history of mural installations both in the United States and abroad, and as a Peace Corps volunteer she was responsible for a series of murals across the nation of the Dominican Republic that served as educational devices as well as landscape enhancements. In the fall of 2012, she was invited to serve as Artist in Residence at Sustainable Bolivia. During her residency, Maggie worked with la Escuela de Despertad on Project Green Space, which involved converting an old dump area into a greenhouse, garden and a mural reminding all that change comes from within. The community project included nutritional and environmental education and encouraged changes in social behavior. In addition, she worked with the youth at Mosoj Yan on a self-portrait project that assisted fourteen young ladies in recovering self-esteem and discover their own innate gifts, beauty, and unique abilities they bring to the world. Maggie is the author of the forth-coming creative memoir, Eight Pieces of Pie.

Camilla Brendon
Camilla is a London based artist that works in the medias of paint, print, collage, and installation and gets her inspiration from experiencing different environments, observing new things, and meeting new people. Most recently, and as part of her 34South|61 North project, Teresa will be travling from Chile to Alaska. Her time will be spent traveling different countries and taking in their cultures, attending and speaking at conferences, working as an art educator, and honing her craft while staying at various artist residencies. She is looking forward to working ouside of the confines of a normal studio environment and hoping these changes will push her in all sorts of new directions. Check out her website here to learn more about her work or if you are interested in becoming part of 34South|61North project.

Kim Alexander
Scottish born Kim Alexander is an illustrator, 2D animator, and arts educator. In 2006 Kim graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art from London’s Byam Shaw, Central St. Martins University and in 2007 she received a Postgraduate diploma in Character Animation at the London School of Animation, CSM. With an extremely dynamic skill set and an always positive attitude, Kim hit the ground running at Sustainable Bolivia. Kim’s principal project was a stop-animation film workshop with the kids at CAICC, but also managed to find time to do an additional animation workshop with AVE, and was an organizer and creative contributor with METAMORPHOSIS, and international collective of artists and musicians that performed several shows and live art exhibitions in October, November, and December of 2013. Kim is committed to inclusive education through running accessible arts workshops with kids and young people and is looking forward to an exciting 2014 as she will be living and working in coastal Ecuador as an arts educator.

Dagmar Binder
Born in 1963 in Jena, Germany, Dagmar has always been fascinated by art, especially drawing, painting, sculpture, design, and most of all, textiles. She first studied linguistics in hopes to be a translator, but several years later she decided to dedicate herself full time to working as an artist. While studying fine arts she was introduced to the technique of felting, an ancient tradition dating back several thousand years to the high plains of central Asia, and immediately fell in love. For the past 17 years she has been experimenting with various fibers and other materials, creating sculptures, installations, costumes for theatres o movies, and clothing and accessories for niche markets. Since 2005 she has taught felting techniques nationally in Germany and internationally.

Jesús Moreno
Jesús Moreno (a.k.a. YES) develops the main part of his art through painting. Self-taught and proficient in graffiti, Jesús has always strove for personal expression, something he has finally found in the geometric shapes that fit within one another to suggest possibility and create new paths.

Ben Hamburger
Ben Hamburger is a 2010 graduate of Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida where he earned his bachelors in Visual Arts. Ben now calls New Orleans home, where he regularly exhibits in three galleries, teaches adult level art classes, and does mural and art enrichment classes in New Orleans Parish public schools. Ben loves to combine his art and travel, previously teaching kids and adults in Bangkok, Thailand and teen girls from a marginalized community in India. Ben has participated in Cochabamban projects with organizations Mosoj Yan, Bolivian Amphibian Initiative, mARTadero, and Ideas Bolivia. Check out his personal webpage here to see a more comprehensive listing of his work: www.benhamburgerart.com

Judy Richardson

Judy Richardson is a sculptor living and working in Brooklyn.  She spent many years sculpting and painting scenery for the San Francisco Opera and all kinds of rock n’ roll shows before she came to New York in 1990.  Judy makes her own versions of functional objects out of lots of different recycled materials that address political and emotional situations.  She is the recipient of the Roswell Artist in Residence grant, the Vermont Studio Fellowship, the C-Scape Dune Shack Residency, and the Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant.  She shows her work in New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, California, and New Mexico. She spent two months during the summer of 2015 at SB learning Spanish, drawing and hiking and traveling around Bolivia to see the beautiful ancient country that is maybe how it was in the US 300 years ago.  She is currently working on ideas about Quechua women and how to use them in her sculpture and drawings.