Sofia Gutierrez

Sofia Gutierrez is a mixed media artist and educator. She has lived and worked in Newport Beach, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Madrid, and New York City. She received her M.S.Ed in Leadership in Museum Education from Bank Street College of Education in New York. She is bilingual (English and Spanish) and has published articles on multiculturalism in art museums today.

Since 1991 she has taught and managed programs for art institutions throughout Los Angeles and Orange County, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Japanese American National Museum, Watts Tower Art Center, Skirball Cultural Center, Getty Villa and Getty Center in Los Angeles, as well as the Laguna Art Museum, and the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) in Orange County.

Gutierrez is currently an educator for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where she develops and teaches museum and outreach programs for schools, families and the community. Throughout her career as a museum professional, she has also worked with artist and curators developing programs and installations, including the recent project the Art of the Protest at Church of the Epiphany in the Lincoln Heights area of Los Angeles.

Sofia spent her childhood between Mexico City and Newport Beach in Orange County. A truly bicultural experience that marked her well as exposed her to the best of both worlds. Mexico City, a living museum where many indigenous languages and customs intertwine with contemporary realities, and Newport Beach of the 1970’s and early 1980’s; a down-to-earth beach town with a cosmopolitan outlook to the Pacific.

Raised in a beach town and starved for cultural institutions demanded a creative quest which led her to the Newport Harbor Art Museum (now known as OCMA), as well as her first museum job at the Laguna Art Museum. Immersed in the early 1980’s Art, Punk, and Surf scene in Orange County and L.A., she works to build building bridges not only between counties but also between countries, with the fluidity of self and space guiding her work through art, culture and social interaction.