Lewis deSoto
Lewis deSoto is a multimedia artist whose installations are often about the human quest to reconcile our inner and outer worlds. His Native American ancestry infused his Southern California upbringing with both a respect for the land and a critical view of cultural imperialism.
Lewis was born in San Bernardino, California and earned his Master of Fine Arts at Claremont Graduate School. He has exhibited widely across the United States, Europe, and Japan. In 1996, deSoto received an Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. His work Paranirvana has been exhibited in numerous major museums worldwide since 2006 as part of the Missing Peace exhibition. He taught at Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, WA, served as the Director of Graduate Studies at California College of Arts and Crafts and as is currently a Professor of Art at San Francisco State University. His work is in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of History and Art, Fribourg, Switzerland; the Seattle Art Museum; Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA; Berkeley Art Museum, CA; Columbus Museum of Art, OH; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA; di Rosa, Napa, CA; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles as well as many corporate and private collections.