About

Josefina Bahamondes is a visual artist with a bachelor's degree from the University of Playa Ancha in Valparaíso, Chile; a diploma in Visual and Performing Art Administration from New York University; and a Master’s of Science in Education from Hunter College in New York. She has trained in various disciplines including painting and photography. In 2014 she moved to Montréal where she worked on different projects focusing on her immigration process, including the portrait project Contenders. In November 2015 she was part of the group show Populart, culture populaire en Amerique Latine at the Université du Québec à Montréal. Josefina moved to New York City in 2016 and worked in several art museums. She advocated for better urban design as a founding board member of Alliance for Paseo Park. In recent years she has been working as a bilingual teacher in a public school in East Harlem and taking black & white photography workshops at the Bronx Documentary Center. Since 2023, she has been capturing the city with her 35mm camera.

Artist Statement

My work is related to the daily events I experience and to my internal quest for identity: how I feel in the world and how I confront the world, from a female perspective. I interpret the stories of those around me into works of art: preserving their images, underlining their individuality, and creating beauty from the raw materials they present. My works attempt to show the unique individuality of that person in the face of systems of economy, education, health, religion, and politics that seek to generalize us into a mass.