Denise "The Vamp DeVille" Zubizarreta is a Puerto Rican and Cuban American Mixed Media Interdisciplinary Artist raised between Union City, NJ, and Hialeah, FL, currently living and working in Denver, CO. She is the former President of the Student Government Association at the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design where she completed her BFA in Fine art.
Zubizarreta recently presented The Modern Borikén (an award winning paper on the Puerto Rican Statehood movement and colonizations impact on the cultural identity of the Puerto Rican people) at the HERA (Humanities Education + Research Association) Conference hosted by University of Texas - El Paso and at the RMCAD Research Symposium where it won the Quality of Paper Research award.
Her artwork focuses on her connection to self through exploring childhood angst, chronic illness, PTSD, and cultural identity. It has been exhibited in gallery and in performance with Microtheater Miami, the Fort Lauderdale Fringe Festival, Emmanuel Art Gallery, Las Laguna Gallery, RedLine, CORE New Art Space, EDGE Gallery, D’Art Gallery, Cicada Magazine, BRDG Project, and the Providence Art Club. Her solo exhibition, “El Bohío Del Bohiti” recently closed at the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design’s Rotunda Gallery.
Zubizarreta explores post-colonial theory through mixed media artworks and installations. By investigating the 20th century cultural effects of colonialism within Latiné communities, she challenges the binaries between Self and “Other.” Traditions, memories, and contemporary life are blended in her work to honor, reclaim, as well as, reinvent narratives of the past, present, and future.