Isabela Ortega
M.A. Student and Teaching Assistant
LALS
Contact
Building & Room:
UH 527
Address:
601 S. Morgan Street
Email:
About
Isabela Ortega is a Nuevomexicana scholar and multidisciplinary artist. Her work illuminates los de abajo, those from underneath that bear the weight of borderland identities. This lends itself to marginalized communities and the “underneath” mundanity of life.
Familismo, ambiguous grief, and being Chicana inspire Isabela. Through the autoethnographic lens of her first-generation experience, these complexities are brought to light. Isabela’s artistic journey and perseverance, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, was featured in the Albuquerque Journal. Additional accomplishments include funding from The Center of Southwest Culture on behalf of the TIASO Artist Cooperative. From an early age, her efforts to uplift fine arts programs at Highland High School were recognized through the International Career Development Conference.
Emphasizing in Writing, Isabela attained her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as a merit scholar. She attended the Ox-Bow School of Art and Artists’ Residency as a Neiman Scholar and the 41st cohort of The Oxbow School as a merit scholar. Her artwork and writing have been published through Brill's Critical Storytelling from the Borderlands: En la Linea, SAIC Magazine, FNews Magazine: SAIC Arts, Culture and Politics, and Leonardo: CNM Fine Arts and Literary Journal among others.