Elena Cordova
Santa Fe, NM
PaintingMixed Media
Elena Cordova is a Mexican-American painter working at the intersection of landscape, memory, and cultural identity. Based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, her paintings layer translucent washes of oil and natural pigments sourced from the high desert to evoke the terrain of the American Southwest and her family's roots in Chihuahua. Cordova holds an MFA from Yale School of Art and a BFA from the University of New Mexico. Her work has been exhibited at the Harwood Museum in Taos, the National Hispanic Cultural Center, and Headlands Center for the Arts. She is a recipient of a Joan Mitchell Foundation grant and a MacDowell fellowship.
The Process
Background
Education
- 2012MFA, Painting and Printmaking — Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT
- 2008BFA, Studio Art — University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
Exhibitions
- 2025Tierra y Tiempo — Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, NM
- 2023Desert Frequencies — National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque, NM
Residencies
- 2021Artist in Residence — MacDowell, Peterborough, NH
Awards
- 2020Painters & Sculptors Grant — Joan Mitchell Foundation
