Karina Aguilera Skvirsky is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice began in photography and grew into video and performance. In 2019, she received a grant from Creative Capital to produce Sacred Geometry, a series of hand-cut photographic collages and How to build a wall and other ruins, a project that includes a multi-channel video installation and live performances. She has exhibited Sacred Geometry in solo exhibitions at Museo Amparo in Puebla, Mexico and Ponce + Robles Gallery in Madrid, Spain. How to Build a Wall and Other Ruins premiered at the XVth Cuenca Biennial, curated by Blanca de la Torre in December 2021. Other important international exhibitions include her participation in Impermanence, the XIII Cuenca Biennial (Ecuador) curated by Dan Cameron in 2016 and There is always a cup of sea for man to sail, the 29th São Paulo Biennial in Brazil (2010).
Skvirsky's work has been exhibited internationally in group and solo shows including: Museo de la Ciudad, Cuenca, EC (2021), Photoville, The Clemente, NY NY (2021), Museo Amparo, Puebla, MX (2019), Centro de la imagen, CDMX (2018), Centro de arte contemporaneo Quito, EC (2018), The Deutsche Bank, NY, NY (2018), Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY (2017), Ponce + Robles Gallery, Madrid, SP (2017), The Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA (2016), Hansel & Gretel Picture Garden Pocket Utopia, NY, NY (2014) and others.
She has received grants from: Anonymous Was A Woman (2019), Creative Capital (2019), Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Creative Engagement (2019), New York Foundation for the Arts (2019), The National Association of Latino Arts & Culture (NALAC, (2018), Fulbright Scholar Program (2015), The Jerome Foundation (2015), The New Jersey State Council in the Arts in photography (2015), The New York State Council on the Arts, Film and Electronic Arts, NY (2010), Urban Artist Initiative, NY, NY (2006), Puffin Foundation, Teaneck, NJ (2006) and others.
She has participated in the following artist in residence programs including: Office Hours, El museo del barrio, NY, NY (2015), The Laundromat Project, NY, NY (2011), MacDowell Artist in Residence Program, Peterborough, NH (2005 & 2010), Cuts and Burns Residency, Outpost, Artist in Residence Program, Brooklyn, NY (2008), Harvestworks New Work Residency, NY, NY (2006), Swing Space, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, NY, NY (2005), Institute of Electronic Arts Residency, Alfred University, Alfred, NY (2005), Center for Book Arts, Artist in Residence, NY, NY (2005), Smack Mellon Artist in Residence, Brooklyn, NY (2004), Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Workspace, Woolworth Building, NY, NY (2003), Cyberart Residency, Longwood Arts Project, Bronx, NY (2003) and others.
While at MacDowell in 2015, she completed a series of photographs to be featured in an upcoming exhibition at Jessica Murray Projects in New York. She also worked on a series of short videos exploring the New Hampshire landscape as a stage for various dramas.
During her 2010 residency, she worked on two video projects. Learning to Swim navigates the psychological space and geological distance of going back and forth from the US and Ecuador and how language affects perception and meaning. The other video was a performance that vocalizes an adulterous affair from the 1970s before email, Facebook and Skype.
