Gabriella Torres is an abstract painter and creative placemaker living and painting in her hometown of Clinton, Iowa. She is one of the five 2023-2024 Iowa Artist Fellows. She specializes in creating large-scale, colorful abstract pieces that focus on themes of balance and connectivity to ourselves and to the natural world. She creates community-based art that promotes social experiences in underutilized and under-loved community spaces. She is passionate about making Clinton an arts destination by creating sustainable models for creative placemaking.
Gabriella has presented at the Iowa Arts Summit and was recently a featured panelist for an Arts Midwest Roundtable discussion on rural creative placemaking. This past March she was recognized as an Emerging Arts Leader in Iowa at the Governor’s Arts Award. While Gabriella’s work has been shown internationally and throughout America, she is deliberate in choosing her hometown for her public art. Last year in Clinton, she had two public art exhibits, WILD, presented at the Sawmill Museum, and The Grove, an outdoor public and interactive art exhibit in a neglected Downtown Clinton pocket park that is now a permanent outdoor gallery. These installations and her advocacy have led to an explosion of artistic expression in the urban core of Clinton changing the aesthetics of this river town. Even the wayfinding system being developed was inspired by The Grove to incorporate artistic flourishes.
“Each painting is an intentional examination of the balance and connectivity between the seemingly disparate parts that make up our lives. Instead of compartmentalizing these parts, my paintings strive to bring these elements together in harmony. ”
