Priscilla Dobler Dzul

b. 1985, Merida Yucatan, Mexico
lives and works in Tacoma, WA and Merida, Yucatan, Mexico

Priscilla Dobler Dzul is an interdisciplinary storyteller. Her paintings, textile, sculpture, video, and performance works have addressed notions of belonging, borders, alienation, and social inequality as they relate to the history of migration and indigenous cultures.

Dobler Dzul’s works examine the migration of cultural practices and forms between different social and political contexts, with an emphasis on the recuperation of artisanal craft and the articulation of alternative narratives of labor, power, and design. Projects like Performing Labor, Class, and Gender (2020) created a platform for the voices of underserved and underrepresented communities of day laborers through the interweaving of an oral history project with tactical sculptural interventions in Home Depot, an American big-box store where migrant workers frequently congregate in hopes of finding work. Her sculpture El Volkswagen (2020) recreates Volkswagen’s iconic Beetle as a three-dimensional weaving made from wood and colored threads. This life-sized woven automobile and its interactive audio component references not only the seductive beauty of this iconic vehicle, but also the darker legacies of its production, which include land erosion, pollution, displacement, and labor exploitation.

Her most recent works comprise large-scale paintings and glazed, painted sculptures inspired by the bold colors and forms of Mayan mythological oral stories and Alebrije folk art that represent all elements of life: air, water, earth, and fire. Expansive landscapes featuring a range of hybrid animals, human figures, and plant life, Dobler Dzul’s ebullient canvases mix traditional mythological motifs with a contemporary approach to storytelling that creates space and representation for queer people in history and art.

Her work has recently been exhibited at Project for Empty Space, Newark, NJ; A.I.R Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Consulate of Mexico, Seattle, WA; The Northwest African American Museum, Seattle, WA; NARS Foundation, Brooklyn, NY; 125 Maiden Lane, NYC, NY; Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle, WA; King Street Station, Seattle, WA; The Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA and Decentered Gallery, Puebla, Mexico. Dobler Dzul was additionally a 2014 recipient of Grants for Artist Projects from the Artist Trust, 2015 Bailey Award, 2016 Edwin T. Pratt Scholarship, 2017 & 2021 Tacoma Artist Initiative Program Grantee, 2021 Puffin Foundation Awardee and a Robert B McMillen Fellowship. She received her MFA in Sculpture from the State University of New York at New Paltz in 2013.

Exhibitions
Berlin, June 25
NOME presents

Of Daughters and Dreams

Priscilla Dobler Dzul

June 25 - July 27, 2022

Read more
download the cv
artworks
read_more