Drawing from her experience as a Colombian-American, Lina Puerta’s art examines the relationship between nature and the human-made, and engages in themes of food justice, xenophobia, hyper-consumerism, and ancestral knowledge. She creates mixed media sculptures, installations, collages, handmade-paper paintings and wall hangings by combining a wide range of materials, from artificial plants and paper pulp to found, personal and recycled objects.

Puerta was born in NJ, raised in Colombia and lives and works in NYC. She holds an MS in Art Education from CUNY and has exhibited widely. She has been honored with numerous awards including the 2023 NWAW Artist Residency (FL); 2020 KODA Lab Artist-in-Residency, 2019/2020 Artist-in-Residence at the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling (NY), 2017-NYFA Fellowship in Crafts/Sculpture, 2017 Artist-in-Residency at the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans, the 2016 Dieu Donné Workspace Residency, Artprize-8 Sustainability Award, 2015 Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant, 2015 Kohler Arts Industry Residency (WI), 2013-14 Smack Mellon Art Studio Program among others. Exhibition venues include solo exhibits at the New York Botanical Garden, Hunter East Harlem Gallery and Sugarhill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling; group exhibits at Ford Foundation Gallery, Museum of Biblical Art, El Museo del Barrio, Socrates Sculpture Park, Wave Hill, in New York City; 21C Museum Hotels in Louisville, KY; and El Museo de la Tertulia in Cali, Colombia. Puerta’s work has been written about in Hyperallergic, The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, and Sculpture Magazine among others.

· Lina Puerta: Accumulated Wisdom, New York Botanical Garden, The Bronx, NY – June 4th – September 11th, 2022.
· Lina Puerta: Migration, Nature and the Feminine, East Harlem Hunter College Gallery, NY, NY co-organized with KODA. October 13th, 2021 – February 5th, 2022
· La Huerta y Yo/ The Vegetable Garden and I, Sugarhill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling, NY, NY June – August 15, 2021
· Tapestries, Smack Mellon, NY March 10- April 22 -2018
· Within/Without, Geary Contemporary, NY, NY February – March, 2017
· Lina Puerta: Traces, Geary Contemporary, NY, NY February – April, 2015

· Deshilar: La Revolución Cotidiana, curated by Yohanna Roa. El Museo La Tertulia, Cali, Colombia. July – December, 2022
· Ariel René Jackson & Lina Puerta: Woven Land, Ruiz-Healy Art, NY, NY. July 14- September 16, 2022. (Two-person exhibition)
· Building Radical Soil, curated by Sofía Shaula Reeser-del Rio, The Latinx Project at NYU, New York, NY January 27 – May 5, 2022
· Vida, Muerte, Justicia/ Life, Death, Justice, curated by Jorge Rojas and Maria del Mar Gonzalez-Gonzalez, Ogden Contemporary Arts, Ogden, UT, October 1st – November 27, 2021
· Tasting Menu, The Barns Art Center, Hopewell Junction, NY, August 27- December 5, 2021
· RED, curated by Nico Wheadon, Welancora Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, June 12 – August 21, 2021
· The Memory of Water, curated by Susanna V. Temkin, Ponce + Robles, Madrid, Spain, May 8- July 15, 2021
· Everyday Magic: Artistic/Gnostic Impulses curated by Jenny Mushkin Goldman and Rebecca Goyette, The National Arts Club, NY, NY, March – April 2021
· The Future is Latinx, The Art Gallery at Eastern Connecticut State University, Willimantic, CT, Fall 2020; Schitkamp Art Gallery, Clark University, Worcester, MA March- May 2021 (Traveling exhibition)
· A Kind of Compass, Transmitter, Brooklyn, NY, June 27, August 2, 2020
· Present Bodies: Papermaking at Dieu Donné, BRIC, Brooklyn, NY December 5th, 2019 – February 2, 2020
· Figuring the Floral, Glyndor Gallery at Wave Hill, Bronx, NY July 21 – December 1, 2019
· Radical Love curated by Jaishri Abichandani and Natasha Becker, Ford Foundation Gallery, NY, NY, Jun.–Aug. 2019
· Buen Vivir/ Vivir Bien, curated by Tatiane Schilaro Santa Rosa, Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin, TX, Jun.–Aug. 2019
· Labor & Materials, 21C Museum Hotels, Louisville, KY, Mar., 2019- Mar. 2020; Bentonville, AR Jan. –Nov. 2018 (Traveling exhibition).
· Sedimentations: Assemblage as Social Repair, The 8th Floor Gallery at The Rubin Foundation, New York, NY. June 21st – December 8th, 2018.
· Site & Survey: The Architecture of Landscape. Patrick VanCaekenbergh, Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson, Lina Puerta, Richmond Center for Visual Arts at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, Jan.18- Mar.11, 2018
· Manigua (from the Botánico Series), Miller Theatre, Columbia University in collaboration with The Wallach Art Gallery and as part of their first Triennial, July, 2017 – June, 2018
· American Histories, curated by Alexandra Schwartz. Pi Artworks, London, UK, Nov. 18 – Jan. 7, 2017
· Back to Eden: Contemporary Artists Wander the Garden, curated by Jennifer Scanlan, Museum of Biblical Art, NY June 26- September 28, 2014 -Catalog Available
· El Museo’s Bienal: The S-Files 2011, El Museo del Barrio, NY, NY – June 2011- Jan. 2012
· EAF10: 2010 Emerging Artist Fellowship Exhibition, Socrates Sculpture Park, NY Sept. 2010 – March 2011

2023 NWAW Artist Residency, Palm Beach, FL
2020 KODA Lab Residency, Brooklyn, NY
2019-20 SugarHill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling Artist Residency, NY, NY
2017 NYFA Fellowship in Crafts/ Sculpture, NY, NY
2017 Joan Mitchell Artist Residency, New Orleans, LA
2016 Artprize Eight’ Sustainability Award, Grand Rapids, MI
2016 Dieu Donné Artist Residency, New York, NY
2015 Joan Mitchell Foundation’s Painters and Sculptors Grant
2015 John Michael Kohler Arts/Industry Residency Program, Sheboygan, WI
2014 Materials For the Arts, Art Studio Residency, LIC, NY (Summer/Fall 2014)
2013-14 Smack Mellon Artist Studio Program and Fellowship, Brooklyn, NY
2010 EAF- Emerging Artist Fellowship. Socrates Sculpture Park, LIC, NY

· Hyperallergic, Sustainability as a Form of Resistance in Art, by Billy Anania, April 18, 2022
· Sculpture Magazine, Lina Puerta – Review, by Jonathan Goodman, February 25, 2022
· Whitehot magazine, Cultural Rebels: Latinx artist Lina Puerta brings her soft revolution to East Harlem, by Coco Dolle, February 2022
· The New York Times, Expanding the Scope of ‘Latin American Art’, by Holland Cotter, December 16, 2021.
· Hyperallergic, Lina Puerta’s Art Mimics Botanical and Female Anatomical Forms, Exhibition Review by Louis Bury, December 10,2021
· Hyperallergic, What Does Radical Love Look Like? By Seph Rodney, August 2, 2019- Review
· Brooklyn Rail, Harlem Perspectives: Decolonizing the Gaze & Reconfiguring the Local, by Nico Wheadon, May 1, 2018 -Review
· Hyperallergic, Relics of a Future Environmental Collapse, by Benjamin Sutton, April 1st, 2015 -Review.
· Hyperallergic, When Snakes Could Walk: Contemporary Artists Take On the Garden of Eden, by Allison Meier, July 7th, 2014 -Review

1995-1998 Master of Science in Art Education, Queens College, NY
1988-1992 Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Studio Art, Wells College, Aurora, NY