Manuela Arnal

Manuela Arnal explores how memory and identity are configured through textiles, drawing, photography, and watercolor. Her practice investigates the mechanisms of memory: Can we trust our memory to recognize ourselves and shape our identity? Working with undefined and ambiguous forms, Arnal creates spaces of doubt that echo the experience of recovering memories that were once forgotten. These forms inhabit the threshold between the recognizable and the unknown, two forces that coexist within identity and remain constantly in flux.

Arnal has exhibited nationally and internationally in Bolivia, Peru, the United States, and Europe. Recent group exhibitions include Tourniquet at The Post Office as part of Upstate Art Weekend (Port Ewen, NY), Delicate Proximities at The Post Office with Vantage Points Collective (Port Ewen, NY), and El Lugar de Los Otros at Monumental Callao (Lima, Peru). She has also participated in the X International Biennial of Contemporary Textile Art (WTA 25 Years) at P.U.R.O. Gallery (La Paz, Bolivia), The Road of Braids at The Clemente (New York, NY). Arnal was selected for the 10th International Art Biennial of Art in Bolivia (SIART) in 2018 and participated in the 6th Ibero-American Design Biennial (BID18) in Madrid, Spain. In 2022, she presented her first solo exhibition, Remind Me What You Are, at Kiosko Gallery in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. She was a studio artist-in-residence at the School of Visual Arts, New York, in 2021. She holds an MFA program from the School of Visual Arts, New York.

Born in La Paz, Bolivia, Manuela Arnal lives and works in New York.