About

Maria Cristina Tavera

Photo Credit: Xavier Tavera

Minneapolis-based artist, Maria Cristina (Tina) Tavera is a multidisciplinary artist who investigates the constructions of racial, ethnic, gender, national and cultural identity via numerous mediums including printmaking, installation, and public art. The artwork focuses on the Latinidad within the United States by examining cultural signifiers determined by our society on how people define themselves and their cultures in everyday life.

Maria Cristina Tavera is a dual citizen with Mexico and the United States. Tavera holds a Master of Leadership in the Arts from the Humphrey School and a BA in Spanish and BA in Latin American Studies from the University of Minnesota. She has received fellowships and grants: McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship, Archibald Bush Leadership Fellowship, Shannon Leadership Institute, Smithsonian Latino Museum Studies program, Museum of Modern Art-New York, Forecast Public Art, Minnesota State Arts Board, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council (MRAC), and Institute of Mexicans Abroad (IME).

Tavera has exhibited nationally and internationally, and artwork can be found in the collections of the City of Minneapolis Public Art, Weisman Art Museum, Fargo Plains Museum, Oglethorpe Museum, Tweed Museum of Art, Minnesota History Center, and the Biblioteca Central de Cantabria, Santander, Spain. As an independent curator, she prepared the international exhibition Sus Voces: Women Printmakers in Mexico at Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and was co-curator for American Art its Complicated at the Minnesota Museum of American Art (“M”). Her writings have been published by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, as well as in a book titled, Mexican Pulp Art.

Artist residencies:

2022 Hannaher's, Inc. Print Studio Residency, Fargo, North Dakota.

2022 Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, California.

2018 Segura Arts Studio Residency, Notre Dame Center for Arts & Culture, Notre Dame, Indiana