Maria A. Guzmán Capron received her MFA from California College of the Arts in 2015 and her BFA from the University of Houston in 2004.
Select solo exhibitions include San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; UB Center for the Arts in Buffalo, NY; the Blaffer Art Museum, Houston, TX; Texas State Galleries, San Marcos, TX and Guerrero Gallery, San Francisco, CA.
Select group exhibitions include de Young Museum, San Francisco; El Museo del Barrio, New York; Boston University, Boston, MA; Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco; Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA; Nazarian / Curcio, Los Angeles, CA; The Mistake Room, Los Angeles; Public Gallery, London, UK; NIAD Art Center, Richmond, CA; CULT Aimee Friberg Exhibitions, San Francisco; Deli Gallery in New York; and Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art, Buffalo, NY. Her works have been written about in Hyperallergic, Variable West, Bomb Magazine, and Art in America.
Capron’s work is in the collection of the de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA; El Museo del Barrio, New York; the Denver Art Museum, CO; the Jorge M. Pérez, Miami, FL; the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY; and the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY. As a 2022 recipient of SFMOMA’s SECA Award, her exhibition Respira Hondo was presented at SFMOMA through May 2023.
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Maria Capron’s practice explores cultural hybridity and a non-binary sense of self by constructing bodily forms from a spectrum of colors and clashing patterns. Born in Milan to Colombian and Peruvian parents and later relocating to Texas, Capron draws from her experience toggling between geographies to address the challenges of identity formation. Her work serves as a physical manifestation of the polyvalent influences that shape us, including cultural identities, intimate relationships, and communal ties.
Capron’s textile pieces are constructed from vibrant, playfully patterned fabrics that are collaged, sewn, and quilted together. While she previously utilized mass-produced materials sourced from discount stores, she has recently transitioned to hand-dying, painting, and silkscreening her own drawings to foster a more intimate relationship with her media.
Through exaggerated body parts—such as muscular arms and intertwined limbs—her figures maintain a fluctuating relationship where it is often unclear where one individual ends and another begins. This design reflects the diversity within the self, suggesting that several assembled personas can represent a single person. For Capron, identity is a shifting evolution; her figures act as both extensions of herself and collective portraits of those who influence her, including caretakers, lovers, and friends. Ultimately, these multilayered works emphasize that we consist of multiple identities—some repressed and others exalted.