Dr. Amara Solari

Biography

Amara Solari's research focuses on the inevitable inequities produced by cultural, visual, and theological interchange between Indigenous groups in Mesoamerica and Spanish settler-colonists in New Spain. Centered on material visual culture, she has written multiple articles and co-authored books and monographs spanning from pre-contact to early colonial periods. Employing an interdisciplinary approach that relies on art historical, ethnohistorical, and technical methods, she investigates a wide variety of material culture including architecture, urban design, cartographic documents, and religious statuary. Her recent book involves collaboration with a team of scholars from the United States, Mexico, and the United Kingdom, titled "Maya Christian Murals in Early Modern Yucatán" (2024, University of Texas Press). In August 2019, she was awarded a four-year Collaborative Research Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and served as the primary investigator. Currently, Solari is writing a monograph titled "Missions Impossible: Art, Franciscan Failure, and Puebloan Perseverance in Nuevo México" that explores the co-opting of Indigenous art and architecture by colonial actors during Catholic evangelical campaigns prior to the 1680 Pueblo Revolt. She has received fellowships from prestigious institutions including the Samuel M. Kress Fellowship at the National Gallery of Art and the John H. Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.

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