“But after a while talking to her and looking at her art, you get the feeling that she’s not so much an uncomfortable person as she is curious and awed. Her “foreign-ness” seems more like a child’s curiosity, as she seems to be looking around the world for new and amazing things to find a better understanding of the world in which she lives.”
-Shawn Olson, art critic, 2002
Mabi Ponce de León (Ph.D., History of Art, The Ohio State University, 2023; M.F.A., Studio Arts, Stony Brook University, 1992) is an independent scholar and artist. Born and raised in Argentina, she has lived and taught studio art at the Universidad de Monterrey in Nuevo León, Mexico, and currently teaches AP Art and Design and AP Art History at a top-rated Ohio school. Ponce de León’s decades-long involvement in Advanced Placement programs includes serving as moderator for the AP Art History Online Community, reader and table leader in the AP exam readings, and member of the AP Art History exam committee and the former College Board Arts Academic Advisory Committee. Ponce de León’s art historical research interests center on Latin American artists confronting and responding to national and local politics. Her current focus investigates Argentinian women artists associated with the DiTella Institute who question the centers of power in the 1960s. Ponce de León has presented academically at conferences such as the National Art Education Association, Advanced Placement, the Southeastern College Art Association, and the Latin American Studies Association.
Research plays an important part in Ponce de León’s artwork. Guided by a personal history of displacement, Ponce de León’s studio practice incorporates works with a variety of analog and digital media and is strongly influenced by cultural iconography, maps, location, and origins. Her installation work makes use of manipulated natural and manufactured materials whereas her two-dimensional work relies on the layering of found imagery within constructed environments. Ponce de León has shown in university and commercial galleries, art centers, museums, and non-profit exhibition spaces. Additionally, she has curated shows and has worked with various arts organizations, including serving on the board of the Ohio Art League. She is a member of Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, and her work was recently included in Mirror Mirror, an exhibition that traveled from the Springfield Museum of Art, the University of Mary Washington Galleries, the Art Museum at the College of Wooster, and the Allen County Museum.