Bella Maria Varela

BIO

Bella Maria Varela is an Assistant Professor and International Arts and Culture Program Leader for the Women’s Leadership Program at George Washington University’s Mount Vernon Campus. She is also faculty at the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design, where she teaches time-based media courses.

Her work integrates photography, video, performance, and fleece blankets to weave together personal experiences with American history and popular culture. Through her multimedia practice, Bella has developed a hybrid visual language to represent her family’s journey from Guatemala, across the U.S.–Mexico border, to Washington, D.C.

Before joining GW, she taught in the Women’s and Gender Studies Department at the University of Missouri and served as Early Career Fellow at The University of Texas at Austin as part of the Expanding Approaches to American Art initiative. She earned her MFA in Photo, Video, and Imaging from the University of Arizona School of Art in 2021.

Her work has been exhibited at institutions including the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture (Riverside, CA), Blaffer Art Museum (Houston, TX), Arts Fort Worth (Fort Worth, TX), Centro de Artes Gallery (San Antonio, TX), Visual Arts Center (Austin, TX), MASS Gallery (Austin, TX), Border Arts Residency (El Paso, TX), CAV Gallery (Las Cruces, NM), Stop Gap (Columbia, MO), Cohen New Works Festival (Austin, TX), 1415 Gallery (Albuquerque, NM), Troost Gardens (Kansas City, MO) and Pidgin Palace Arts (Tucson, AZ).

She is a current member of MASS Gallery in Austin, TX, and co-organizer of the inaugural residency program Ni de Aquí, Ni de Allá in Jilotepec, MX.