ARTIST BIO
Valeria Rachel Herrera is a Mexican American artist, educator, and activist whose practice spans printmaking, sculpture, drawing and architectural design. Valeria holds an MFA in Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and a Bachelor of Architecture professional degree from the Syracuse University School of Architecture. In 2024, Valeria joined the faculty of Ithaca College, where she serves as an Assistant Professor of Art.
Herrera’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at ‘T’ Space – the Steven Myron Holl Foundation, the RISD Museum, Print Austin, and Il Bisonte in Florence, Italy, and is represented in the permanent collections of the RISD Museum and the Fleet Library. In 2022, Valeria completed the renovation of a historic 1899 fire house, home to VRH STUDIO , her print and multi-media studio in Syracuse, NY.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Valeria Rachel Herrera’s work investigates the layered intersections of memory, architecture, and place through materiality, process, and spatial illusion. Grounded in printmaking yet expanding into drawing, sculpture, and architectural methods, her practice pushes the medium into spatial and interdisciplinary forms. Her imagery emerges from a personal cartography of memory—domestic fragments, architectural traces, and shifting patterns that reveal and obscure. As a Latina, female, and former orphan youth with a nomadic history, she constructs layered environments where the personal becomes a site of shared reflection.
EDUCATION
MFA in Printmaking, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Certificate in Collegiate Teaching in Art & Design
Bachelor of Architecture, Professional Degree, Syracuse University, School of Architecture
website: valeriarachelherrera.com