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Mildred Beltré

Mildred Beltré is a Brooklyn based artist, mother and activist working in print, drawing and participatory politically engaged practice, to explore facets of social change. She is interested and implicated in, 
political movements and their associated social relations and structures.  Using text and the body her most recent work involves looking at revolutionary theory and how it is animated and experienced in the day to day.
 
Beltré’s selected exhibitions include the Everson Museum, Syracuse, NY; The International Print Center New York; Load of Fun Gallery, Baltimore, MD; Five Myles Gallery, Brooklyn, NYBRIC, Brooklyn, NY; Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY; Freedman Gallery, Albright College, Reading, PA; Projecto Ace, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Hollar Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic; Brun Leglise Gallery, Paris France, among others.  Her work is included in the Special Collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN among others.
She has been awarded residencies and fellowships from Apex Art, BRIC, Lower East Side Printshop, Vermont Studio Center and the Santa Fe Art Institute.  She has received grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Brooklyn Arts Council, the Brooklyn Foundation and the Rema Hort Foundation, among others.

Beltré is the co-founder of the Brooklyn Hi-Art! Machine, an ongoing socially engaged collaborative art project in Crown Heights, Brooklyn that addresses gentrification and community building through art-making. 

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  1. […] Mildred Beltre is a Brooklyn based artist. In her studio she is working on prints and drawings at the moment. The drawings are text based abstractions meaning that the text isn’t immediately visible. She is working on changing the materials she uses for the drawings. Another series incorporates self-portraits but the strategy is similar in that the image isn’t immediately clear. The figures are more easily read from further away, becoming more abstract as the viewer moves closer. In this way, what one thought they knew perhaps isn’t really there. Another, ongoing series of work is titled Slogans for the Revolution that Never Was combines text and figurative images in machine woven tapestries. Beltre was long involved in political organizations in which a non-hierarchical system was used–decisions were made via discussion rather than top-down organization. Reflecting on these practices inspired her to create the work in the Slogans series incorporating jokes that she felt those involved in these sort of organizations would appreciate. Beltre draws text from many places. Some is borrowed and some is original. Humor mixed with seriousness and sexiness all play off each other in Beltre’s work. Beltre has a solo exhibition set for June, 2019 at the Kentler International Drawing Space in Red Hook, New York. Another important aspect of Beltre’s work is collaboration. Together with a few friends/colleagues she opened up conversation on the streets of Crown Heights. Crown Heights has been largely West Indian for quite a long time but is currently in the throes of an extreme gentrification. This process comes with a police presence that “protects” the new people moving in while criminalizing those already there. Beltre’s group project aims to collaborate with anyone who wanders by in her Crown Heights neighborhood. One very important component of this project is SNACKS. Beltre and her collaborators have found that by offering a snack they are able to more easily get people to come by and open up. This ongoing project is called The Brooklyn Hi-Art Machine. This project has been something of a catalyst for further exposure in that it has allowed Beltre to think about how to create opportunities. Applying for group shows and grants is a regular part of Beltre’s practice. To hear more from Mildred Beltre, listen to the complete interview. […]

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