My artistic practice explores migration, memory, coexistence, and community identity through muralism, painting, and participatory projects. As a Venezuelan visual artist based in Philadelphia, I am interested in how public art can become a space for dialogue, reflection, and collective belonging.
I work closely with communities to create murals, workshops, and collaborative projects that connect personal stories with shared cultural narratives. My process is rooted in observation, research, and engagement with everyday environments, transforming lived experiences into visual languages that are accessible and meaningful to diverse audiences.
Projects such as Guía de Aves reflect my interest in translating natural systems into simplified visual structures, bridging scientific observation and artistic expression. In my mural work, I often integrate themes of cultural identity, migration, labor, and local history, using color and symbolism to strengthen a sense of place and connection.
Ultimately, my work seeks to create spaces where people feel represented, seen, and connected using art as a tool for empathy, education, and social awareness.
Edith Zapata (Caracas, Venezuela, 1988) is a Venezuelan visual artist and visual communicator currently based in the Philadelphia region. Her socially engaged artistic practice explores coexistence, migration, memory, and community identity through muralism, painting, and participatory projects.
Raised in a working-class family by a carpenter father and an artisan mother, Zapata developed an early sensitivity toward creative labor and collective making. During her childhood, she painted ceramics alongside her mother and sister to help support the household, experiences that shaped both her visual language and her understanding of art as a transformative and communal tool.
From adolescence, she balanced work and study while cultivating a strong interest in philosophy, psychology, and social dynamics. Although she initially questioned whether an artistic career could provide economic stability, she ultimately pursued design and graduated as a Visual Communicator in 2015. That same year, her work received recognition in the VI Salón Nacional de la Coexistencia, a platform dedicated to promoting diversity, coexistence, and social reflection through visual culture.
In 2017, Zapata emigrated from Venezuela to Colombia, an experience that profoundly transformed both her personal life and artistic perspective. While navigating displacement and economic instability, she began collaborating with local artists, musicians, and artisans through informal cultural gatherings and community-driven initiatives. These experiences reinforced her belief in art as a vehicle for connection, resilience, and collective voice.
Over time, her practice evolved from visual communication and graphic design toward large-scale public art and conceptual work rooted in social observation. Through murals, drawings, and installations, Zapata seeks not only to transform public spaces visually, but also to create moments of pause and reflection around migration, belonging, collective memory, and the often invisible narratives embedded within communities.
Influenced by her background in design, her visual language combines synthesis, symbolism, narrative composition, and optical play. Throughout the years, her creative process has shifted away from technical perfection toward a more honest exploration of emotion, intuition, and imagination, using drawing and painting as tools for introspection and dialogue.
Key themes within her work include cultural identity, emotional resilience, preservation of memory, and the relationship between people and their environments. Projects such as Guía de Aves investigate observation of nature and ecosystems as a means of reconnecting with intuition, contemplation, and collective awareness.
Her work has been exhibited in Bogotá, Philadelphia, and New York, and she has developed murals and commissioned projects centered on cultural storytelling and community engagement. In 2025, she curated her first collective exhibition, Coexistencia, bringing together artists from different nationalities to explore how diverse cultural identities can coexist within a shared creative space.
Today, Edith Zapata’s practice centers on the belief that public and participatory art can function as a catalyst for social awareness, empathy, and human connection, creating visual experiences that invite communities to recognize both their differences and their shared humanity.
2020 - 2021
Graphics Art and Print Media
Graphic Designer Freelance, Cartagena, Colombia
2020
Visual Merchandising, ADIDAS Company, Cartagena, Colombia
2019 - 2020
Graphics Designer Freelance, Bogotá, Colombia
2017 - 2018
Graphics Designer, CTP SUNWAY, Bogotá - Colombia
2015 - 2017
Graphics Designer Freelance, Caracas, Venezuela
2013 - 2015
Graphics Designer and Advertising Sales, Kenco Studio, Caracas, Venezuela
Sales: Project orientation from conceptualization to the execution process. Gigantography, stand creation, digital, pop material.
Designer: Corporate Identity, Branding, Illustration, Layout of Printed Books and Magazines.
2012 - 2013
Technical Photography Designer, Photomaton, Caracas, Venezuela.
2010 - 2012
Printer Operator, Lithocopy, Caracas, Venezuela
2008 - 2012
Graphic Designer, Editorial Metropolis, Caracas, Venezuela
2025
InLiquid at the Hyatt Centric, Philadelphia, PA
2024
New Now VII, InLiquid Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2019
Group Encuentro de Mujeres Creadoras, Store Distrito Cannábico, Bogotá - Colombia
2021
Live painting with @supersonicamusic, Cartagena, Colombia
2022
Shot Immigrant Fringe Salon in BOK, Philadelphia,
2021
Copacabana with @santo_cabron, Manhattan, E.E.U.U
2022
Art Fairs, with @MADEBOK
2015
Third Place, Hall of Coexistence, with @espacioannafrank
Park Town Place Artist in Residency, InLiquid, Philadelphia, PA
Currently I have had 10 private commissions and am currently developing a public mural for the Garcés Foundation.
