Natalia Rodarte Villa
She/Her
El Paso, TX
Born in 2001, Natalia Rodarte is a multimedia artist based in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. Her work explores feminism, identity, and border life through painting, illustration, and metal, revealing uncomfortable truths often silenced in her community.
“My work explores social and political issues shaping life along the U.S.–Mexico border between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso. Focusing on gender-based violence, femicides, corruption, and migrant experiences, I draw from my identity as a Hispanic woman living between both countries. Through illustration, painting, and metal work, I aim to make visible silenced realities and provoke difficult conversations. My process incorporates diverse materials, found objects, and elements of chance, gesture, and concealed text to invite viewer engagement.”
www.rodnatv12.myportfolio
How does your creative practice reflect your experience of living and making as a BIPOC and/or 2SLGBTQIA+ maker?
“As a Hispanic border artist, my creative practice reflects the complex realities of living between different identities, traditions, cultures and its share of expectations. My sexual orientation, alongside my identity as a woman raised within a traditional household, deeply influences my work, shaping how I navigate both personal and collective experiences. This is more relevant in my experience as a Hispanic woman trying to carve my own path in the United States, a place that, in many ways, is increasingly becoming more hostile toward communities like mine. Throughout my work, I explore these tensions, showcasing the resilience and contradictions that exist within these intersecting spaces.”
"Heirloom I", Brass, poppy jasper, red jasper, red sardonyx, bone, moss agate, 8" x 5", 2024What techniques, stories, or materials have been passed down to you, and how are you reimagining them in the present?
“For me, the usage of color and found objects came from my mom. She has always been resourceful, often using non-artistic materials to create what she needed, teaching me that nothing is truly useless and that everything can be treated as a new tool.
At the same time, growing up as a woman, I was often made to feel that embracing a colorful aesthetic was something to be ashamed of and because of that I would never be taken seriously. For a long time, I internalized it. However, I have since begun to reclaim color in my work, not only because I genuinely love it, but because rejecting it felt like I was rejecting my identity and heritage as a Mexican artist.”
How does your work honor those who came before you while forging new pathways for the future?
Anything else you would like to share about this work? This can be an important part of the process, sourcing materials, research, etc.
“I believe my work honors the women in my family who have come before me. I have witnessed firsthand the mistreatment and sacrifices they have endured throughout their lives due to the intersecting expectations of gender, culture, and tradition.
Because of this, my practices become a way for me to honor them: by creating work that represents these realities, especially those truth that were, and still are, considered taboo. I strive to preserve their beautiful resilience and delicacy that define them. My intention is not only to showcase their obstacles but to also represent them with the dignity they deserve.”
“For this project, I wanted to push myself to create a piece that spoke not only to us, the people who live in constant fear of the current administration, but to them, their enforcers. My work confronts the illusion of security and anonymity ICE agents believe they have by their own usage of face coverings.
My intention is for them to understand that it is only a matter of time before their faces become engraved in the memory of the American people, if not the entire world and that their actions are proving true to their name: like ICE their actions are colder than any winter we have faced, but, like every winter, ice will melt, and with it a new, colorful, and diverse spring will soon bloom.”
Photographs Courtesy of the Artist
"Ice Melts", Sterling Silver, Nickel, Resin, Citrine, Cubic Zirconia, and Garnet, 5" x 6" x 7", 2026