Lorena Molina
Artist/Educator/Curator
Lorena Molina is a Salvadoran multidisciplinary artist, educator and curator. She is an Assistant Professor of Studio Art Practice at San Francisco State University. She’s also the founder and the director of Third Space Gallery, a community space and gallery that supports and highlights BIPOC artists.
Through the use of photography, video, performance and installation, she explores identity, intimacy, pain, and how we witness the suffering of others. The work interrogates relationships and the formation of relationships as political acts that are guided by negotiations of power and privilege.
At the core of her work is an exploration of spatial inequalities and the challenges that oppressed groups face in constructing place and establishing a sense of belonging. The work is driven by a deep sense of displacement experienced after a 12-year-old civil war forced her and her family to migrate to the United States. Most of her work stems from a need to find and build community in a way that it’s both tender, accountable, challenging through difficult conversations that makes everybody involved actively question their position and privileges in society.
She received her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Minnesota in 2015 and her Bachelor of Fine Arts from California State University, Fullerton, in 2012. Molina has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including the Diversity of Views Fellowship, the Christopher Cardozo Fellowship, (two) Truth and Reconciliation Grants from ArtsWave, Hot Picks by Smack Mellon, Vacant to Vibrant Grant, Fotofocus Exhibition Grant, The Idea Fund, Artpace International Residency, and The Kala Art Institute Fellowship.
Molina's work has been exhibited and performed nationally and internationally, including at the Contemporary Arts Center (Cincinnati), The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, the Southeast Museum of Photography, Art League, Houston, Assembly Projects (Houston), Wave Pool Gallery, The Carnegie (Covington, KY), Vox Populi, FSU Museum of Fine Arts, EXPO Chicago, The Armory Show, The Rubin Center, SF Camerawork, The Berkeley Art Center, Root Division, The Beijing Film Academy, and across the piazzas of Florence, Italy.
Her work has been reviewed and featured in Hyperallergic, Glasstire, Eazel, The Wall Street Journal, The Careful Photograph with Tarrah Krajnak, Burnaway, Artillery, Ocula, Collector Daily, CAA Reviews, UnderMain, Movers and Makers, CityBeat, LENSCRATCH, Square Cylinder, AEQAI, Not Real Art, The Columbus Dispatch, BTW Berkshires, Latino News Network, Rice Thresher, The Daily Tar Heel, Syracuse New Times, The Daily Orange, the Document Journal, and among others.
Her curatorial work includes Photography and Tenderness co-curated with Eliza Gregory at Wavepool Gallery, Flowers for Here at Third Space Gallery, Learning Curve at the Houston Center for Photography, On Belonging at Third Space Gallery, and the upcoming exhibition Slow Burn at the Fine Arts Gallery at SFSU (2026).
In the classroom, she works with students to understand the way that images are laden with history and vocabulary. Images tell stories, but who gets to tell the story matters.
All work © 2025 by Lorena Molina / All rights reserved.