Drawing from her experience as a Colombian-American, Lina Puerta’s art examines the relationship between nature and the human-made, and engages in themes of food justice, xenophobia, hyper-consumerism, and ancestral knowledge. She creates mixed media sculptures, installations, collages, handmade-paper paintings and wall hangings by combining a wide range of materials, from artificial plants and paper pulp to found, personal and recycled objects.

Puerta was born in NJ, raised in Colombia and lives and works in NYC. She holds an MS in Art Education from CUNY and has exhibited widely. She has been honored with numerous awards including the 2023 NWAW Artist Residency (FL); 2020 KODA Lab Artist-in-Residency, 2019/2020 Artist-in-Residence at the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling (NY), 2017-NYFA Fellowship in Crafts/Sculpture, 2017 Artist-in-Residency at the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans, the 2016 Dieu Donné Workspace Residency, Artprize-8 Sustainability Award, 2015 Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant, 2015 Kohler Arts Industry Residency (WI), 2013-14 Smack Mellon Art Studio Program among others. Exhibition venues include solo exhibits at the New York Botanical Garden, Hunter East Harlem Gallery and Sugarhill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling; group exhibits at Ford Foundation Gallery, Museum of Biblical Art, El Museo del Barrio, Socrates Sculpture Park, Wave Hill, in New York City; 21C Museum Hotels in Louisville, KY; and El Museo de la Tertulia in Cali, Colombia. Puerta’s work has been written about in Hyperallergic, The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, and Sculpture Magazine among others.