Regina Parra

São Paulo, Brazil, 1984

Lives and works in New York

Since 2005, Regina Parra, through painting, performance, video, and installation, has explored the tension between oppression and rebellion. Her early research focused on colonialism and the lasting injustices of patriarchy and capitalism, producing works that ask the viewer to rethink official narratives by focusing on the marks left on those who have been forgotten, subjugated, enslaved, and exploited.

Parra holds a Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts and completed a Master's in Art History under the guidance of curator Lisette Lagnado. Initially, she graduated with a degree in theater and worked for renowned director Antunes Filho as his assistant director until 2003. A connection with the performing arts, especially with Greek tragedy, is present in her work as a visual artist. Her focus centered on woman's social body, as a place of affirmation and potential power. Female bodies are perceived as vulnerable and fragile, but Parra seeks to turn this assumption around through a process of reconstructing and adapting bodily movement to limitation. Parra's work speaks of veiled, historical violence in relation to women. 

She was awarded the 3M Public Art Award (2018), SP-Art Fair Prize (2017), Joaquim Nabuco Foundation's Video Award (2011) and Videobrasil Award (2011). Parra was also nominated for the Emerging Artists Award, Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami.

Her work is part of important museum collections such as Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP, São Paulo), Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (Pina_), Fábrica de Arte Marcos Amaro (FAMA, Itu), Associação Cultural Videobrasil (São Paulo), Fundação Joaquim Nabuco (Recife), Instituto Figueiredo Ferraz (Ribeirão Preto), among others.