Pterocarpus Officinalis
Born in Vega, Puerto Rico, in 1952 Dhara Rivera holds a Bachelor’s degree in Humanities from the University of Puerto Rico (1971) and another in Sculpture from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York (1980). After pursuing independent studies at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (1981), Ms. Rivera obtained a Master’s Degree in Plastic Arts with a major in Sculpture from Hunter College, New York (1983). The artist’s track record includes individual and collective exhibitions since 1977 with awards from the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant for the Arts (2000) and Premio Casa Candina, along with participants Carlos Collazo and Adriana Mangual (First Biennial of Contemporary Puerto Rican Ceramics, 1988). She represented Puerto Rico in the Biennial at Havana, Cuba (200) and at international art fairs such as ARCO in Spain (1977).
Rivera’s most recent works explore the dichotomy between exterior and intimate spaces, between liberties and limits, and intimate space, between reality and imagination. The artist playfully combines an array of elements, which yield hybrids made up of a multiplicity of references.