Maryrose Cobarrubias Mendoza

Maryrose Cobarrubias Mendoza is an American artist who employs cultural critique to explore cultural assimilation and scale manipulation towards everyday objects. She is an associate professor and drawing coordinator at Pasadena City College, as well as a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow.

Biography Maryrose Cobarrubias Mendoza was born in Manila, Philippines, and in 1970, emigrated to Los Angeles, California, In 1991, she obtained her MFA at Claremont Graduate University. In 2001, she became an associate professor and drawing coordinator at Pasadena City College, where she has also been part of several group exhibitions. In her review of the 1996 Kayumanggi Presence exhibition at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Joan Rose of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser cited Mendoza as one of the few Filipino-American artists whose work at the exhibition she was "particularly impressed by". Robert Enright called her sculpture at the 1996 Memories of Overdevelopment traveling exhibition at Plug In Institute in Winnipeg "powerful", saying that it "is personal and political at the same time."

In his review of her solo exhibition Truth at the YYZ Artists Outlet gallery in Toronto, Gary Michael Dault of The Globe and Mail said: "The materials of Mendoza's work are as ersatz as the age we live in. The questions she asks are as noble as faith." and she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Her artwork explores cultural assimilation. Another theme explored in her work is scale manipulation towards everyday objects; Mendoza recalls that this was inspired by Claes Oldenberg and the Fluxus community. She also said that her use of American objects was inspired by her American assimilationist upbringing. Maryrose Cobarrubias Mendoza (2003), HAUS Gallery, Pasadena, California Maryrose Cobarrubias Mendoza (2019), COOP, Seoul Somewhere in Between (2019), W. Keith & Janet Kellogg Art Gallery, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona