About Me
Emiliana Henriquez was born in El Salvador and moved to the United States as a child, growing up in East Los Angeles before relocating to the Westside. Her upbringing in diverse and socially contrasting communities informed an early engagement with themes of race, cultural segregation, and identity, which remain central to her practice. Raised within a family engaged in multiple spiritual traditions, including Yoruba, Hinduism, and Sacred Geometry, she developed an early familiarity with syncretic belief systems and cross-cultural symbolism.
Encouraged by her father, an art enthusiast, Henriquez began drawing and painting at a young age. Although she did not receive formal academic training in the arts, she worked as a painting assistant to artist Aaron Gilbert, gaining formative technical experience and mentorship. Her practice has since developed through self-directed study, sustained studio work, and experiential learning. Her work is characterized by atmospheric compositions that integrate narrative elements and visual symbolism, often exploring psychological and cultural registers of memory, space, and identity.
In January 2025, Henriquez presented her second solo exhibition, Warm Blue Velvet, at Half Gallery Annex, New York. The exhibition explored cross-cultural commonalities through references to devotional practices within Abrahamic traditions, informed by the artist’s travels to Egypt. Employing a restrained triadic color palette and recurring textile motifs, the works considered intersections between historical religious imagery and contemporary visual language, foregrounding questions of cultural continuity and shared symbolic structures.
Recent exhibitions and projects include Lilies of the Nile (2024), presented in Artsy’s collaboration with Outfront Media USA, Artists Shaping Culture: Hispanic Heritage in Full Color, a nationwide public campaign highlighting Hispanic artists during Hispanic Heritage Month. Henriquez will be presented with Sorondo Projects at Untitled Art Fair Miami (December 2025) and featured in The Wrap Magazine’s The Wrap Book Vol. 4: The Art of Television. In October 2025, she participated in the Upstairs Art Fair in Paris with Half Gallery.
Upcoming projects include a solo exhibition with Half Gallery in November 2026, as well as participation in Untitled Art Fair Houston 2026 with Half Gallery. Since June 2025, Henriquez has been traveling across Europe and is currently working between Essaouira, Morocco and Los Angeles, CA, where she is developing a new body of work informed by ongoing research and lived experience across geographies.