Consuelo Jimenez

Consuelo was born in Sacramento, California, the daughter of migrant agricultural workers, a Chicano mother and a father of Huichol Indian descent. Crossing borders and negotiating between three perspectives has always been fundamental to her identity and the basis of her creative process. Consuelo’s work ranges from delicate miniature tapestries to monumental fiber and mixed media installations juxtaposing the natural beauty and ecological destruction along the US/Mexico border. Consuelo has exhibited and lectured nationally and internationally for more than twenty-five years. Her work is part of the permanent collections of museums such as the Smithsonian American Museum of Art, Museum of Art & Design in New York, the National Hispanic Center for the Arts, New Mexico, the Mexican Museum in San Francisco, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and the Oakland Museum of California. She was awarded the 2017 Master Artist Grant from the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture and was elected to the Council of Fellows of the American Craft Council in 2018. She was a 2021 recipient of the James Renwick Alliance for Craft Masters of the Medium Award.

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Consuelo received her BA and MA from San Diego State University. She began teaching fiber art at San Jose State University in 1987, where she received her MFA. Now retired, she taught for more than twenty years, developing a vibrant fiber program, inspiring young artists to embrace thread.

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SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2022, Consuelo Jimenez Underwood: Thread, Spirit, Resistance, Documented Work, San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, San Jose, CA
2019, Exposing Unseen Boundaries: Works by Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, Sarah Doyle Center for Women and Gender, Brown University, Providence, RI
2018, Consuelo J. Underwood: Thread Songs from the Borderlands, 108 Contemporary, Tulsa, OK 2017, Mano-Made: New Expression by Latino Artists, Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, Craft in America Center, Los Angeles, CA, a Getty initiative
2015, Borderlines: The Art of Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, ArtRage Gallery, Syracuse, NY
2015, Mothers: The Act of Seeing, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV
2013, Welcome to Flowerlandia, Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA
2011, Undocumented Borderlands, Conley Art Gallery, California State University, Fresno, CA
2006, Tortillas, Chiles, and Other Border Things, MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana, San Jose, CA

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022, Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
2021, Crafting America, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR
2019, Woven: Connections and Meanings, National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago, IL
2019, Striking Gold: Fuller at Fifty, Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA
2019, The U.S.-Mexico Border: Place, Imagination, and Possibility, El Dorado Arts Festival, Lille, France
2018, New Threads, Laband Art Gallery, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA
2017, The U.S.-Mexico Border: Place, Imagination, and Possibility, Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA, in partnership with Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, a Getty initiative
2017, Shelter: Crafting a Safe Home, Contemporary Craft, Pittsburgh, PA
2017, Looming Spaces, Huntington Beach Art Center, Huntington Beach, CA
2016, Stories of Migration: Contemporary Artists Interpret Diaspora, The Textile Museum, George Washington University, Washington, DC
2005, Tortilla Meets Tortilla Wall, InSite_05, Border State Park, Performance at United States/Mexico Border
2001, Collecting for the New Millennium, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY (Traveling Exhibition 2001-2005)
2000, The Renwick Invitational: Five Women in Craft, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC

2022, Consuelo Jimenez Underwood: Art, Weaving, Vision. Anthology edited by Laura E. Pérez, PhD. and Ann Marie Leimer, PhD., Duke University Press
2021, Latinx Art Got More Visibility Than Ever in 2021. What Will Change Going Forward?, Maximiliano Durón, ARTnews
2021, Fiber artist breaks through boundaries: renowned artist channels ancestors, memories to explore crossing borders, Carey Sweet, San Francisco Chronicle
2021, Prickly Politics in Borderlands Art: Aesthetic Activism and the Barbed Wire Motif in Consuelo Jimenez Underwood’s Artwork, in InterAmerican Perspectives in the 21st Century, María Herrera-Sobek, University of New Orleans Press
2021, Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women to Show at SAAM, Megan D Robinson, Art & Object
2016, These stories of displaced families are told in fabric, needle and thread, Mark Jenkins, The Washington Post
2012, Craft in America: Threads, Featured Artist, PBS Television