My work centers on social-political community issues including cultural identity, migration, violence, inclusivity, labor, and empowerment. I create sculptures made out of mediums ranging from steel, copper, wood, ceramics, and fabric.

I have worked on a number of collaborative projects at the intersection of contemporary art practices, indigenous Mexican folk art and craft traditions, and US-Mexico relations. In addition to studying and preserving endangered cultural and craft traditions, these projects have served as active investigations into the creation of just working conditions and the protection of immigrant rights. My emphasis is on creating a social consciousness through my work, generating solutions to these problems through my art and empowering all members of highly diverse communities.

In recent years, I have especially focused on community art collaborations, producing work that has engaged international and local communities in transformative practices. With these works, we have created art pieces that serve as cultural and historical artifacts that value and document the experiences, struggles, and achievements of those who have found their way, often through migration and exceptional sacrifice, to new places where they now work to contribute meaningfully within their communities. This work is both individually and collectively inspiring to all participants and local populations,

Artist Biography

Margarita Cabrera received an MFA from Hunter College in New York, NY. Cabrera currently lives and works in El Paso where she recently had a two-year exhibit at the El Paso Museum of Art.   Her most recent exhibitions include a show entitled “Pop Departures” at the Seattle Art Museum.   Her work has been included in galleries such as 516Arts, Sara Meltzer, Walter Maciel, and Synderman-Works. Her work has been included in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; the McNay Museum San Antonio; the Sweeney Art Center for Contemporary Art at the University of California, Riverside, the Sun Valley Center for the Arts, and El Museo del Barrio, NYC, LA County Museum of Art, CA. In 2012 she was a recipient of the Knight Artist in Residence at the McColl Center for Visual Art in Charlotte, NC. Cabrera was also a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant.