
MEET THE ARTISTS
Muralist: Warren Montoya
Warren Montoya comes from the communities of Santa Ana Pueblo (Tamaya) and Santa Clara Pueblo (Kha’po Owingeh) in New Mexico. Working in multiple creative disciplines for over twenty years, Warren’s priority as a visual artist is to share the power and complexity of modern Indigenous peoples. With the philosophy that Indigeneity is beholden to action, practices of farming, parenting, painting and engaging in community events are daily modes of how he nurtures a responsive relationship with the world around him. Having a recognizable style of vibrant coloring and dynamic imagery, his art has earned him fellowships, grants and much recognition.
Warren started the company REZONATE Art in 2013 to promote and sell contemporary Native art. Now focused on producing murals in collaboration with communities, organizations and schools, REZONATE activates public engagement through arts processes and works to build opportunities for youth. In 2016, he also founded the non-profit, REZILIENCE Organization (REZARTX), that produced an annual Indigenous arts festival in Albuquerque NM, and a series of community conversations called P.L.A.C.E., which shared skills and insight about Native peoples relationship to People, Land, Art, Culture and Ecology.
Over his career in experiential education, Warren fostered tools to promote youth leadership development and cultivate healthy relationships in the communities he works. Being a Father of two, Warren is continually inspired to expand his creative practices into new dimensions for the benefit of future generations.
Spoken Word Artist: Jessica Helen Lopez
Jessica Helen Lopez is the City of Albuquerque, NM Poet Laureate, Emeritus (2014-2016), and the author of five collections of poetry. Her most recent book, “The Blood Poems,” was published in the Fall of 2021 by the University of New Mexico Press and was nominated for the Housatonic Book Award. It is available for order at unmpress.com. and other book outlets found in-store and online. A Justice for Migrant Women’s Collective Rural Women’s Fellow and a Pushcart Prize for Poetry nominee, she is also an educator at the Native American Community Academy for the Institute of American Indian Arts and teaches for the UNM Chicana and Chicano Studies Department.
A California-born Xicana, by way of Deming, NM and the surrounding frontera communities of Las Cruces, NM and El Paso, TX. Lopez is a NM Humanities Council Chautauqua Scholar, a national award-winning Slam Poet, a recipient of the NM Women’s Press Zia Book Award and is the Native Youth Opportunities Director for the NACA Inspired Schools Network, a network of Indigenous schools rooted in anti-racist, anti-bias, culturally relevant education, and BIPOC community-designed schools. Featured as, “One of 10 Up and Coming LatinX Poets You Need to Know,” by Remezcla, a multi-media production company uplifting the Latin American cultural sphere of art makers, she is the former host of the televised UNM PBS weekly arts and culture show, ¡COLORES! Lopez is available to book readings, presentations, one-on-one or group workshops, narration/voice work, grant-writing, curriculum design, guest teaching. Email her or visit her website. Her forthcoming book, “My Heart is a Pomegranate,” is set to be released in Spring 2024 (FlowerSong Press).
Augmented Reality: Electrifly and BrandXR
Electrifly is an augmented reality (AR) art company that partners with artists & creators to bring their ideas to life through immersive technologies.
BrandXR is a no-code Augmented Reality platform and award-winning XR creative studio. Electrifly is an augmented reality art app and subsidiary of BrandXR, specialized in interactive public art, and known for pioneering Augmented Reality Murals.
Miranda Viscoli, Co-president of New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence </em)
(Organizer and Facilitator for Project)
Miranda Viscoli received a Bachelor of Fine Arts at New York University as well as a Bachelor of Arts from California State University at Long Beach. In the summer of 2009, she completed her masters in Latin American art history at California State University Long Beach where her master’s thesis won the Outstanding Thesis Award for the College of the Arts. After the Sandy Hook shooting, Miranda Viscoli suspended work on her PhD at the University of New Mexico in order to research and write about the problem of gun violence both in New Mexico and the United States. Miranda Viscoli is the co-founder and co-president of New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence. NMPGV is a non-partisan 501 (c)3 whose sole purpose is the prevention of gun violence in New Mexico. She has created and implemented art-based gun violence prevention programs in schools throughout New Mexico and helped to design and organize the national gun buyback program, Guns to Gardens. She works with schools, school boards, police departments, legislators, city councils and the New Mexico Department of Health to implement gun violence prevention measures throughout the state. She was awarded Ten Who Made a Difference, the Mucho Gusto Award and the National 2021 Peaceseekers Award. She has been invited twice to the White House for her work in gun violence prevention.