John Rivas

Courtesy of the artist and Kates-Ferri Projects

John Rivas (b. 1997, Newark, New Jersey) earned his BFA from the School of Visual Arts and holds an MFA from Columbia University. Solo and two-person exhibitions include François Ghebaly, Los Angeles; and Ross + Kramer Gallery, New York. He has been included in exhibitions at El Museo Del Barrio, New York; Queens Museum, Queens; Ross + Kramer Gallery, New York; Anthony Gallery, Chicago; and UTA Artist Space, Los Angeles. His work is part of the public collection of the Perez Art Museum, Miami.

Salvadoran-American artist John Rivas holds ancestry and cultural identity close in his work. In raw, expressive scenes of loved ones, domestic life, childhood memories, and familial histories, Rivas approaches his art-making through a deeply personal lens, honoring the work and voices of those closest. His practice has long been characterized by material resourcefulness and a necessity-driven approach that layers found fabrics, drygoods, heirlooms, embroidery, gifted materials, household supplies, and painting into earnest, sensitive representations of the people and places around him. In his newest exhibition, Rise above it, Rivas expands on his familiar mixed-media vocabulary, venturing into hand-carved and painted wooden sculpture as an extension of the assemblage-based language of his practice. Inspired by redwood carvings in Northern California and global traditions of polychrome wooden sculpture, the eleven works that comprise the exhibition bring to life Rivas's subjects and his enduring painterly interests in labor and cultural celebration.

A school without walls

LA ESCUELA___ began in 2021 with a reflection from its artistic director and co-founder, Miguel Braceli, about educational models for social practices and situated learning. This idea of bringing art and education closer to social realities by taking them out into public space became the building block of a project co-developed with the international foundation Siemens Stiftung. From this vision, LA ESCUELA___ was conceived as a “school without walls.”

Rather than operating from a fixed campus or following a predetermined curriculum, this artist-run platform works through a growing hemispheric network of artists, architects, educators, researchers, organizers, independent spaces, and communities. Its projects take shape in different contexts across the Americas, responding to local conditions while creating connections between places and practices.

Since 2022, LA ESCUELA___ has developed more than 45 projects in 13 countries, engaging more than 6,000 participants in online and on-site programs, and collaborating with over 350 artists and thinkers. Its programs include on-site experimental classrooms and online labs, residencies, public art, exhibitions, lectures, workshops, symposia, and research processes. An open-access Library with over 300 essays, interviews, documentation, and pedagogical resources expands this work into a growing alternative critical pensum of Latin American artistic and pedagogical practices.

At the heart of the platform is a commitment to reciprocal exchange: not exporting a model from one place to another, but creating conditions for different forms of knowledge to meet, circulate, and transform one another.