Resume / Biography / Artist statement

Education

• 1984 – Present, Art Students League, New York.  Studied acrylics painting and silverpoint drawing with renowned artist and teacher, Sherry Camhy.  Studied pastel painting, figure drawing, oil painting with such memorable teachers as Peter Cox, Americo DiFranza, Dean Hartung

• 2007 M.A. in Studio Art, Adelphi University.  Garden City, NY

• 1991 B.A. in Art History, New York University

• 1989  Studied oil painting with celebrated Colombian illustrator and artist, Guillermo Galvis Santos

Exhibitions

• 2019  Group show during Art Basel week in Miami with Spectrum

• 2019  Group show, The Colombian Civic Center. Queens, NY

• 2018  Group show, Morgan Stanley in Purchase, NY

• 2009  Group show, The United Nations, New York City

• 2009  Group show, Agora Gallery, Chelsea, NY

Awards, Affiliations, Charity Art Donations

• Lifetime member, The Art Students League, New York City

• 2019 Recipient of the Blue Dot recognition from the Art Students League group show

• 2019-2020 Associate Member, Society of Illustrators, New York City

• 2019  Donated artwork for the Berkshires, M.A. Saint Francis Gallery charity, Sawa Sawa Foundation which helps with numerous efforts in Western Kenya, with housing, financial literacy program and medical care

• 1989-1990 Two-time recipient of the Art Students League Board of Controls Scholarships

Internships

• 2002 – 2004 Museum of Modern Art, New York City, Volunteer. Involved with customer service insofar as the permanent collection and current exhibitions were concerned.  Attending to the public with questions pertaining to membership and artworks

• 1989 Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Design, Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York City, Research Associate Intern.  Catalogued and updated sequential records of Eighteenth-Century American Artists such as Robert Blum, Daniel Huntington, William Stanley Haseltine.  Evaluated condition of original drawings and studies.  Measured original works of art and deciphered graphite inscriptions.  Worked under Gail S. Davidson, Curator

• 1989  Viridian Gallery, New York City, Intern.  Administrative duties undertaken for contemporary arts gallery under the direction of Paul Cohen

Isabel Bolivar is a native of New York City and learned to paint and draw with the Art Students League.  Learning silverpoint drawing and acrylics painting under the guidance of illustrious artist and teacher, Sherry Camhy.  Ms. Bolivar has had the fortune of earning prestigious scholarships and she has participated in group shows both in Chelsea and in Miami during Art Basel week which is itself a recognized and international venue for the exhibition of art.

The experiences Ms. Bolivar had during the Art Basel event in Miami (2019) were transformative. Being exposed to artwork, galleries, curators and art professionals from all over the world provided her with a real sense of art culture both within the United States and abroad.  The breadth of creative ideas and art styles were extraordinary and reinforced her universal perspective of art through the lenses of a first-generation American of Colombian heritage.

Ms. Bolivar earned her B.A. in art history from New York University and her M.A. in studio art from Adelphi University.  She is also a member of both the Art Students League and the Society of Illustrators.  She has been influenced through her professional endeavors with the Smithsonian Institution and Museum of Modern Art.

As an artist, I hope to create a body of work that is both figurative and abstracted as well as colorful and monochromatic, to reveal beauty using arresting reds, oranges, and blue hues on a canvas or paper and elegantly rendering subjects in neutral tones with silverpoint.  Intent on reflecting the beautiful that still permeates our world and lives despite the chaos that stands by us.

Am inspired by such artists as Sophia Vari and her use of shapes and colors, Guillermo Galvis Santos, Richard Diebenkorn, Clio Newton, Fernando Botero and by the lines, colors and forms found in Sherry Camhy’s paintings and haunting drawings in graphite of the human body.