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Daniella Porras-Sholes

Contact

dporras@wesleyan.edu
Instagram: _daniella_porras_

Daniella Porras was born in 2001 and is an only child from Massachusetts with older parents who both grew up outside of the U.S.. After experiencing the death of her Father and Aunt, and the dispersal of her family throughout the world, she has become obsessed with attempting to freeze a moment in time through paper and printmaking.

She graduated from Wesleyan University where she double majored in studio art, with a concentration in printmaking, and anthropology. She recently completed a two month paper sculpture intensive at Penland school of Craft that heavily influenced her art practice, making paper her main medium. This led her to getting the Longform Residency at Oxbow School of Art where she has continued her experimentation in paper sculpture and printmaking.

Artist Statement

I am a multidisciplinary artist who creates sculptures and prints exploring my want to desperately hold onto memories and spaces before they inevitably vanish. I use handmade overbeaten paper to print on while it is wet or I cast the paper over found objects. Paper holds memory, but it is malleable, echoing how humans remember. I am attempting to capture a moment using materials that repel the very act of control. The paper decides what details get carried into the final piece, making me confront my own inability to keep something the same.

This uncontrollable process of papermaking distorts, shrivels and pulls away, mimicking in a physical form how fickle memory is. My father and aunt passed away within two years of each other, each stricken with dementia. Paper mimics how their minds would function, holding on to pieces but losing the ability to bring it all together.

By taking objects or photos from my own environment, I create site specific work, painstakingly adhering the paper to an object that attempts to do what will never be possible, pure replication of a moment in time.

CV

EDUCATION

2025 8 Week Intensive Course in Paper Sculpture, Penland School of Art and Craft

2024 B.A. in Studio Art with a concentration in Printmaking and Anthropology,

Wesleyan University

AWARDS

2023 Zawisa Studio Art Fund

2017 Scholastic National Art Award Drawing Silver Key

GROUP EXHIBITIONS:

2025 “In Session” exhibition at Oxbow School of Art

2024 Wesleyan University Senior Thesis Show

2023 “Sexpressions” exhibition Wesleyan University

RESIDENCIES

2025 Longform Residency at Oxbow School of Craft

RELEVANT PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

2026 Women's Studio Workshop Internship Forthcoming (April 27-Sept 16)

2025-2026 Volunteer at Project for Empty Space Futures

2025 Papermaking Demo at Oxbow School of Art

2023-2025 Artist Assistant to Tammy Nguyen

2023-2025 Production Assistant for Passenger Pigeon Press

2022-2024 Print Shop Teaching Assistant at Wesleyan University