RIA UNSON'S Nick Would Have Picked Eleanor

Ria Unson was born and raised in the Philippines, migrated to the United States as a teenager, and has lived her adulthood in the Midwest. Unbeknownst to her, her great-grandfather was brought to the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, a legacy of America's imperial past. By sheer coincidence (or destiny) she moved to the historic neighborhood that once housed the Philippine Village at the Fair. Ria's art and aesthetic is very much shaped by her experience of living in between worlds. Her art embodies the felt sense of space and time that is often distorted in the act of crossing borders and time zones. Time is a character that appears in her work as a soft-edged memory or light and shadows slipping by. Despite having begun her journey 8,245 miles away, Ria finds herself standing on the very ground of her ancestral past, painting to honor the lives that came before her while holding wonder for all that their stories make possible.