Diógenes Ballester is a visual artist, educator, and writer. He holds an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a BFA from the Catholic University of Puerto Rico. As a youth, he attended Ponce Museum of Art in Ponce, Puerto Rico. He was a professor at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science & Arts, the State University of New York at New Paltz, the College of New Rochelle, School of Arts & Science, and The State University of New York in Albany. He lives and works as an artist is New York City and holds workshops and lectures at conferences and universities throughout the United States and the Caribbean.
For Ballester, his function as an artist is like that of an archeologist: to discover, investigate, extrapolate meaning from, and offer reconfigured perspectives of the artifacts that have been left behind. His rich Puerto Rican cultural and familial heritage drives him to create. He uses painting, drawing, printmaking and new media as a means to access the past and re-interpret the present, and these experiences are embedded in his altar-like presentations of archeological artifacts and found objects. They explore oral history, mythology and cultural identity across nations.
Prints by Diógenes Ballester
