Adriana Corral

b. 1983, El Paso, Texas
Lives in Houston

Note from the artist

I have shifted the focus of my project to align with Prospect’s post-Hurricane Katrina mission that poses the question, “What could the role of artists be in rebuilding the city of New Orleans?” My project will now respond to the Louisiana coastal communities most impacted by Hurricane Ida and work directly with those communities to rebuild. In this urgent moment of turmoil and unrest, it is imperative that I utilize my resources as an artist and as citizen to try and address the immediate needs of communities confronted by this environmental impact. 

I look forward to sharing more details in the coming weeks. 

About the artist

Adriana Corral uses data and historical records to inform her practice and encourage meaningful dialogue. She transforms dates and archival resources provided by historians, activists, scholars, and journalists into examinations of injustice through such themes as memory, loss, and human rights. Her works lay bare inequities and stories of repression, and she asks viewers to choose to remember and to question why some things are collectively forgotten or intentionally erased. She frequently incorporates artifacts in her pieces, such as soil collected from sites where human rights violations have taken place. Her installations are recursive; she often retains materials from one that will be incorporated into the next. In fall 2018, Corral was an artist-in-residence at the Joan Mitchell Center, New Orleans, along with her partner, artist Vincent Valdez, where the pair explored how their artistic processes speak to the human condition. She was an artist research fellow at the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (2018). Corralearned a BFA from the University of Texas, El Paso, and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. Her recent solo exhibitions include Line As Human/Línea Como Concepto Humano, Moody Gallery, Houston (2020), and Unearthed: Desenterrado, Staniar Gallery, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia (2019), and she participated in the group exhibition Suffering From Realness, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams (2019–20).

Adriana Corral, Unearthed: Desenterrado, 2018. Site-specific public installation, Rio Vista Processing Farm, El Paso, Texas. Mixed media; flagpole: 60 feet high; flag: 18The Wilding Cran Gallery, Los Angeles, has hosted her exhibitions Karon Davis: Muddy Water (2018) and Karon Davis: Pain Management (2016). x 30 feet. Courtesy of the artist