Angela Divina is a Mexican-American artist who creates vibrant mixed media paintings that combine traditional art mediums and ready-made materials. Inspired by folk, commercial, and political art from the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico, her work critiques cultural commodification and its impact on identity politics. Through her multidisciplinary practice, she aims to raise awareness of desert land use and invites audiences to examine their own consumption and political affiliations.

Recently, CEMEX (a Mexican multinational building materials company) has set up an excavation site in South Phoenix across from Divina’s home. Inspired by this, her current body of work, “Miscelánea Divina”, reimagines her life on the United States-Mexico border as a series of company-towns run by culturally significant corporations and political parties. Miscelánea is the Spanish term for a neighborhood store selling assorted goods and groceries, typically named after the families that owned them. In making this work, Divina often asks herself which company town her miscelánea would belong to.

Divina was born in Los Angeles, California, and earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts in 2018. Her work has been exhibited in numerous galleries, including the Los Angeles LGBT Center and the Institute of Contemporary Art San Diego. Divina’s work has also been featured commercially in Target’s line of HeyDay electronic accessories. She currently resides in Phoenix, Arizona, and is an advocate for desert preservation.