Silvia López Chavez is a Dominican-American visual artist whose community-centered murals form connections across disciplines and cultural boundaries. She uses joy as an act of resistance through her vibrant work worldwide. Silvia is a proud recipient of a Common Good Award from MassArt, a Leadership in Public Art Award by the New England Foundation for the Arts, and The Boston Foundation’s Fellowship Award. Silvia has completed art residencies in Mexico, California, MASS MoCa, Haystack, and Vermont Studio Center. Commissions include the U.S. Chinese Embassy in Beijing,Peabody Essex Museum and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. She is a graduate of Massachusetts College of Art & Design and Altos de Chavon, Dominican Republic. Silvia continues her studio practice close to the ocean between Boston and DR. ARTIST STATEMENT I am a visual artist working in painting, printmaking and murals. Much of my work is framed by my experience as an Afro-Caribbean woman living and working in Boston. At the core of my practice is a desire to bring joy, connection, and agency to the places where my work lives. The murals have an unapologetic color palette, with a mix of rendered realistically painted areas juxtaposed with geometric patterns and forms. As a muralist, my process is fueled by understanding a site's context and relationship to how the public engages with that space. Content is often determined through a collective, neighborhood-based community process, which I consider part of my social practice. I believe in the important role representation plays in this city and positively lift communities of color in the public art realm, empowering them to take up space through visual art. My studio work provides a space for play and experimentation, allowing me to look inward, continue to hone my craft, and create more personal works. In the last several years, I’ve been exploring themes of identity, and cultural hybridity, using textiles, painting, printmaking, and collage to explore ideas of ancestral patterns, mapping, migration, and portraits.