rafa esparza is a multidisciplinary artist whose body of work engages site-specificity and materiality in order to challenge dominant power structures. He is inspired by his own relationship to colonization and the disrupted genealogies that come forth as a result. 

esparza received a BA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2011. He has had solo exhibitions at Artists Space, New York, NY (2023); Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles, CA (2021); MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA (2019); Artpace, San Antonio, TX (2018); and Ballroom Marfa, TX (2017). Selected group exhibitions have been held at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA (2023); Commonwealth and Council, Mexico City, Mexico (2022); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2017); and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2016). esparza is a recipient of a Pérez Prize (2022), Latinx Artist Fellowship (2021), and Lucas Artist Fellowship (2020), among others. His work is in the collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Dallas Museum of Art; Minneapolis Institute of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Kadist Art Foundation; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Vincent Price Art Museum, Los Angeles.