Biography:

Yvonne Venegas is a graduate of the certificate program at the International Center of Photography in New York and is currently pursuing her MFA at University of California San Diego. In New York she assisted photographers such as Dana Lixenberg, Bruce Weber and Juergen Teller. She has worked as a freelance photographer for the New York Times, SPIN and VIBE and has had her work published in Mexico City in Luna Cornea a photography journal published by the Centro de la Imagen as well as Celeste Magazine. She has shown her work individually and in group shows throughout the US, Mexico, Spain, France and Canada, including Tijuana Sessions (as part of ARCO 05) in Alcalá 31 of Madrid, in the traveling show From Baja to Vancouver, in the Seattle Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (MCASD), the Wattis Center in San Francisco and Vancouver Art Gallery, the Exhibition Strange New World: Art and Design from Tijuana, which is currently on view at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, and individually in Casa de America as part of Photoespaña-04, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Diaz Contemporary Gallery in Toronto and the Museé a Beaux Arts, of Orleáns, France.
In 2002 she was awarded top honors for the series "The most Beautiful Brides of Baja California" at the prestigious, tenth annual Bienal de Fotografía, organized by the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico City and more recently received the stART up Award from the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. Her work is part of collections in the US and Mexico, including the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary art San Diego, Fundación Televisa and Centro de la Imagen in Mexico City.
Her photographic work explores issues of class, gender and personal representation in accordance to a participation in a specific class structure.
Yvonne now lives and works in the Tijuana / San Diego border.

Statement:

We work on an image of ourselves that coincides with those norms that agree with what others understand as acceptable (Bourdeau). Family portraits made by following the rules approved by our social group hang on our walls, and they work as a guarantee sign that we are a part of the group because of the image that represents us. I believe that there are several societies in Latin America where women have the task of maintaining the proper appearance for their family, for their friends and for their group. In "The most Beautiful Brides of Baja California" (2000-2004) I studied this phenomenon with the upper middle class women of Tijuana. With my friendship as access, I found myself investigating what people believe to be photogenic and how they decide to present themselves to a photographic camera. Over time I became interested in seeking their fragile moments, those where the subjects were perhaps not prepared for the picture, and therefore not conscious of their own representation. My study of appearance intends to find the human side by focusing on the construction of a shell that is there to be seen by others. I see the beauty in Tijuana, a city that lives in constant transformation. I believe in the humane character of the people that have decided to make this place their ground and behind their constructed perfect image, I see the uniqueness of this border culture.