Carina Jimenez is a Mexican American painter based Columbia, Missouri. She earned her BFA from the University of Missouri in December of 2016, and in her final semester of undergraduate studies, won the Grand Prize of the Visual Arts and Design Showcase. Using the funds from the award, she traveled to Italy to study oil painting at the Florence Academy of Art. As Jimenez began this series of portraits, she explored the idea of the anonymous models in famous baroque oils, but was quickly led to further understand and ultimately remedy the lack of representation of her Mexican ancestors in this vein of painting. Her portraits of ancient Aztec figures utilize her skill as an oil painter to humanize an underrepresented cast of historic characters, highlighting and questioning a still-present form of prejudice and cultural obliteration.
