Eskenazi alumnus Andrés de Varona (B.F.A. 2019, Studio Art) is the 2024 recipient of the Society for Photographic Education’s Imagemaker Award. In 2021 he was named one of the 12 New Mexico Artists to Know Now, and he was featured on NPR’s Picture Show in 2022. Born into two Cuban families, de Varona grew up in Miami as a first generation Cuban American. The artist is known for work that addresses loss, conflict and grief, including a collaboration with a cancer survivor to create images that acknowledge the self as a living memorial.
“I’ve had to ask myself why I am attracted to illness, and intensity,” de Varona writes. “I believe my own sense of loss and unfairness has made me want to see other people who have experienced profound loss, or that are going through a painful change in themselves.
“Art is my tool to measure cycles of indignation and of healing, our growth as human beings, and as a way to record victories,” the artist continues. “What I create is an attempt to enter the collective human experience, as well as an access point into myself.”