Naimar Ramirez

Naimar Ramírez is a multidisciplinary artist who works mostly with and on paper, and oscillates between photography and sculpture. She graduated in 2011 from the University of Puerto Rico with a Bachelor's Degree in Environmental Design and Photography, and obtained a Photography MFA in 2013 from Savannah College of Art and Design. Her artistic interests revolve around exploring the intersection between image and object concepts, as well as the visual transformations that occur when the visible merges with the tactile. This leads to working in a medium-independent manner that is free from overly structured techniques and yields variable results. Her training in the design and architecture fields informs her artistic practice, allowing for a systematic approach to her work, which unifies process, concept, and context. Ramírez has exhibited individually and collectively in galleries, museums, and project spaces in the East Coast of the United States, and across Puerto Rico. She is best known for her intricate paper masks, which gained recognition from her solo show at the SCAD Museum of Art in 2015, with another portion of the series also featured at Photo London in 2018.

 

ARTIST STATEMENT

A deep interest in cultural encounters and language, as well as the inevitable effects of translation on communication, fuel a search for similar mutations in my visual work. The transformations from abstract thought to concrete words are reflected in the photographic explorations, where images are transformed into three-dimensional pieces that are presented with an air of 'objectness.' My work lies between the image and object concepts. Using identifying qualities from both the physical and virtual realms, I explore photographic ideas, like reproduction and objectification, through non-photographic means. With this trans-media body of work, I investigate the consumption of place-as-image and the resulting response. Through photo-sculptural translations, I study how relationships are currently amplified with and through images, and how, as predominantly visual beings, we rely on these foreseeable representations of people and places to identify ourselves within our context. This visual dissection aims to generate questions about how we see, capture, and understand place and the ways it affects its occupants by contributing to their personal and cultural self-identity.