Artist Bio

Damaris Contreras is a disabled contemporary artist born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley. Her work primarily focuses on issues surrounding and within the disabled community. One of the biggest obstacles in society is ableism. This is described as prejudice against people with not only physical disabilities, and mental as well and how we are viewed as not having the same opportunities as able-bodied people.

 

She is a mixed media artist who has experience in acrylics, ink, oils, clay and creating digital illustrations. She has always loved being expressing and documenting her experiences in mainly 2-D forms such as paintings and illustrations. Her most recent series incorporated much of those mediums and centralized on her own experiences and struggles with growing up as a disabled person from specifically her perspective.

 

Through her artwork, she hopes to spread disability awareness and make abled-bodied people more conscious of these issues. By sharing her experiences as a disabled person, she hopes to start a conversation on topics such as ableism and the lack of accurate representation there is in the media of disabled folks.