2,219 Miles Makes All the Difference

November 3, 2015 - March 9, 2016
Hours: Wednesdays 2pm - 6pm
Museum of Walking
Tower Center Suite 206
123 E University Drive Tempe, AZ 85281

Opening Reception: Tuesday November 3, 2015, 6pm - 8pm

Artist Talk: Tuesday March 1, 2016, 5.30pm - 6.30pm. Click here for more information.

Estrella Payton's 2,219 Miles Makes All the Difference is an exhibition which reflects a desire to physically connect to a place of cultural identity through an intentional walk along the southern coast of Puerto Rico. Separated from the island of her birth and raised in a land-locked Midwestern city, visual artist Estrella Payton reflects on the significance of the miles of her personal separation, the invisible histories instantly erased by tides, and the indelible traces of colonialism.

Estrella Payton is an interdisciplinary artist currently based in Phoenix, Arizona.

Payton is an observer of people, especially their interactions with each other in a space. Her interest in power and privilege, cultural conditioning, and systemic inequity combined with her lived experience as a Stateside Puerto Rican, drives her motivation to complicate physical spaces to reorient a viewer’s experience and perspective in institutional and organized environments.

Formally trained as a printmaker, her artwork also explores the use of building materials, constructed spaces, movement, unconventional drawing, collage, and place-centering experiences.

She earned a Master of Fine Art degree from Arizona State University in 2015 and a Bachelor of Fine Art from Kansas City Art Institute in 2007.