Current Featured Artist 35(1&2)

Featured Artist: Monica Dolores Baza

Block print of a coastal scene, featuring sprouting coconut seeds and coconut palm trees on the beach, vaka with their sails unfurled in the ocean, and the sun shining brightly behind a low mountain.

 

The Rebirth of Guåhan Oceania, by Monica Dolores Baza, 2016. 

Block print, mixed media, 24 x 36 in. Photo by Victor Consaga.

Monica Dolores Baza is of CHamoru and French-Canadian heritage and has a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Concordia University in Montreal. Her designs, drawings, paintings, and linoleum block prints are inspired by CHamoru material, visual, symbolic, and storytelling culture and the island environment of Guåhan (Guam). Baza was influenced by role models such as Filamore Palomo Alcon and Adriano Baza Pangelinan and credits her growth as an artist to participating in gatherings filled with robust discussions and constructive criticism of art practice and theory. She was one of nine founding members of the Chamorro Artists Association in 1987 and established Baza Designs that same year. In 1994 she collaborated with four others to found the Guam Gallery of Art. In 1995 Baza and her sister incorporated the expanding design business specializing in art cards, bags, T-shirts, and fine art.