Dr. Natalia Arbelaez

Biography

Natalia Arbelaez is a Colombian American artist born and raised in Miami, Florida, to immigrant parents. She received her BFA from Florida International University and was awarded an MFA Enrichment Fellowship at Ohio State University. Her work has been exhibited internationally in museums and galleries, including collections at the Everson Museum in New York, the Museum of Art and Design (MAD) in New York, Fuller Craft Museum in Massachusetts, ICA Miami, and the Gardiner Museum in Toronto, Canada. Arbelaez was awarded the Rittenberg Fellowship at the Clay Art Center in Port Chester, New York, and she received the inaugural Artaxis Fellowship funded residency at the Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts in Newcastle, Maine. In 2018, she was recognized as an NCECA Emerging Artist and was a resident artist at the Ceramics Program at Harvard University, where she researched pre-Columbian art histories. Arbelaez was the artist-in-residence at MAD in New York City during 2019-2020, where she researched the work of historically influential women ceramicists. She has served as a visiting artist at the American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA) in Pomona, California, and she joined the School of Art + Art History + Design as an Assistant Professor in Ceramics in fall 2024 after completing a residency at MenLo Studio in Jingdezhen, China, where she spent the summer researching the city's rich ceramic history and industry.

Research Interests