Nara Winston Betancourt

Nara Winston Betancourt is a Dominican-American multidisciplinary artist (1998) currently based in Los Angeles. As a child, she was raised in countries throughout Latin America and Asia until 2010, when she returned to her mother’s native country, the Dominican Republic.

After graduating from the Chavon School of Design in the Dominican Republic (2018), she transferred to the Netherlands and finished her Bachelors in Fine Arts from The Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.





works

  • Nara’s work is based on a merging of visual and material elements of disparate backgrounds to create one visual space, be it a painting, an installation or a digital collage. Her work represents the present through her lens, but is composed of the past, of cultural traditions, religious symbols, family, and the visual language of the place she comes from.

    Nara investigates tropes that stand out to her such as Dominican elitism, the tourism industry in the Caribbean, and family dynamics and its relation to catholicism in the Dominican Republic.

    Coming from a highly catholic and family oriented country like the Dominican Republic, much of her practice has a strong religious undertone and is a reflection of the role in which religion plays in her community and in her life. Having come from a country where many elements of life do not merge together, her work looks to juxtapose elements to create imagery of what truth looks like through her lens.

    WHY HORMIGA CARIBE

    I strive for my work to be fearless and to push boundaries that are not meant to be pushed. Us caribbeans, we are claiming our space. La Hormiga Caribe gives us the opportunity to claim our space as one. To redefine what Caribbean art looks like and what Caribbean art has to say in with the world is something that can only be done by coming together because community is where we thrive.

  • Altar de Viajeros (2022)

    This is a work dedicated to the artist's mother, who left the Dominican Republic for the first time at the age of 25 to live a life that she wanted. Her mother lights her candles every morning and prays to this altar. The objects in this still life give an insight to her life and the things she values the most- her own mother, her husband and children, and the Virgin Mary. It is an altar that comes from a personal place, but it is an altar many Dominican and Caribbean women share simultaneously

    Oil on Canvas

    23x31 in

  • Casa de Campo Living (2020)

    This piece is a reflection on the double meaning that Casa de Campo has in the Dominican Republic. This painting is a playing field where two ends of our socio-economic society overlap. The title of this work is the name of a magazine which publishes news related to Casa de Campo Resorts and Villas in the Dominican Republic. However, casa de campo means house in the countryside. The work juxtaposes the artist's mother and Buelo in the campo where he’s from, with imagery of the magazine's elite lifestyle to highlight the disparity between them. One phrase, two worlds.

    Acrylic on canvas

    51x41 in

  • El Castigo de Dios (2020)

    This painting was conceived using a code which merges images of the artists choosing together. The code had images of fire and the elite of the island she comes from. Other elements were added afterwards to enforce the story the image created on its own. This work is a brutal portrayal of karma and God who sees all. No one escapes God’s judgment.

    Acrylic on canvas

    30x30 in