Mirta Toledo
Mirta Toledo (born 1952) is an Argentine artist (painter, sculptor, print maker and writer), that promotes diversity through her artwork. Personal life Mirta Toledo was born in the Almagro neighborhood of Buenos Aires. She is the oldest daughter of Toribio Toledo (Afro-Guarani) and Eva García Román (Spaniard). Since early childhood she was conscious of the ethnic diversity within her own family that later on influenced her artwork. Toledo cites her father as the driving force in her art, who "instilled in her qualities of strength, ambition and values, normally reserved for men in her society. Marriage and family In January 1977 Toledo married Dr. Mauricio R. Papini in Buenos Aires, Argentina. From 1980–82 they stayed in the United States in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where their sons were born (1981). They returned to Buenos Aires from 1982–1988, moved to Honolulu from 1988–1990, and then to Fort Worth, Texas from 1990–2000. In 2000 she moved to Austin, Texas where she continued working in her artwork and had solo shows. In 2007, Toledo returned to Buenos Aires where she currently resides and works. Education Toledo obtained a MFA in Visual Arts with a Major in Painting, from the National University of the Arts in 2011. In 1985 she completed a residency with master sculptor Antonio Pujía in the National College of Fine Arts Ernesto de la Cárcova. She earned a degree as a Professor of Painting (1974) and Professor of Sculpture (1982) from the National School of Fine Arts Prilidiano Pueyrredón, and a bachelor's degree in Fine Arts (Drawing) from the School of Fine Arts Manuel Belgrano (1973). Toledo completed two residencies specializing in hand-made fine art serigraphy at Coronado Studio in Austin,Texas: Serie Project V (1998) and Serie Project IX (2002). She also was an artist in residency at Stone Metal Press in San Antonio, Texas (2002). Toledo was a Class 2002 Alumni of the NALAC Leadership Institute of the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures. Artistic life Sculpture and pottery: 1977–93 In the late 1970s she focused on sculpture, winning her first awards in that medium from the SAAP (Argentine Society of Visual Artists), the Ministry of Culture of Argentina, and the Dirección General de Educación Artística (1979). His father transmitted to her legends and beliefs of his culture and he was who awakened her love for art. Her themes and inspiration are often similar. The sculptures have indigenous faces, they are people who affirm her past, and they are the characters of hundreds of stories that he told her as a child. Her works affirm her ethnicity.In 1980 Toledo traveled to the United States for the first time. In 1982 she had her first Solo Show On Angels, Women and Machines at the North Star Gallery of the University of Minnesota in Saint Paul. With those works "she tried to express the transformations our world is passing through in three aspects of our everyday life experience: Religious, Humane and Technological and representing these aspects are the angels, women and machines".