Untitled (Bust 9)
2023
Rodrigo Lara Zendejas
Chicago, Illinois
Artworks shown are selected from works submitted by the artist in their grant or residency application. All works are copyright of the artist or artist’s estate.
About Rodrigo Lara Zendejas
Rodrigo Lara Zendejas is a Chicago-based visual artist who was born and raised in Mexico. Lara’s work is informed by memorialization, religion, time, and ancestries. He earned an MFA from SAIC (2013) and a BFA from the Universidad de Guanajuato, Mexico (2003). Lara has had solo exhibitions at Museo de Arte Moderno in the state of Mexico; Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago; the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago; C.G. Boerner in New York City; Kruger Gallery in Marfa, TX; The Mission Projects in Chicago, among others. Lara has two monographs of his work: Máscaras y Artefactos and Memorials. Some of his awards include: IAPG, DCASE, Chicago; Proyectos Especiales and Jóvenes Creadores, FONCA, Mexico City; James Nelson Raymond Fellowship, 2013 SAIC; International Graduate Scholarship and the John W. Kurtich Travel Scholarship, SAIC, Berlin/Kassel, Germany; among others. Lara is Assistant Professor/Area Head of the Ceramics Department at University of Notre Dame.
Program Participation
Emerging Artist Grant, 2016
Joan Mitchell Center Residency, 2025
Website / Social Links
I am fascinated by the way that memory—with its inherent, ever-changing fluidity—disrupts our ability to faithfully freeze or memorialize people or perspectives in history. Instead, it is our momentary glimpses of memory and hindsight that drive how we understand the present.”
