Geraldina Interiano Wise was born in San Salvador, El Salvador. Interiano Wise’s introduction and connection to the art world started at an early age under the tutelage of Violeta Bonilla (1924–1999), a select protégé of the muralist Diego Rivera. Painting plein-air on the San Salvador Volcano every Saturday morning under the watchful eyes of the children of the ravines, Interiano Wise developed her connection to Mother Nature and to her ancestral roots. Keenly aware of societal inequalities and the children’s dire living conditions, housing became a major focus of her architectural design career, and environmentalism influenced the direction of her art.

Upon graduating high school, Interiano Wise arrived at Vassar, the new epicenter of American liberal ideology. During her time there, she took intentional excursions to New York City, where she was exposed to the freedom of the Abstract Expressionist movement. This proved to be a pivotal influence on her long-term practice as an artist. At Vassar College she studied Art and Art History under the influence of American art historian Linda Nochlin, the nationally preeminent voice in feminist art history.

Alongside her art, and in her quest to solve issues of sustainable and affordable housing for her fellow Salvadorans, Interiano Wise also studied architecture and urban design under Professor Jeh Johnson. He ultimately advised her to transfer to Rice University for an expanded professional degree path, recognizing the symbiosis between her passion for art and art history and her larger mission to help the people of El Salvador.

Interiano Wise’s introduction to Rice University proved life-changing. In October 1979, she found herself displaced when civil war erupted in El Salvador, a conflict that would define her generation and redefine her country. As a result, Interiano Wise became an “accidental immigrant”: permanently displaced, she focused on her education. She went on to complete two degrees in Architecture, Art, and Art History at Rice University.

While at Rice University, she participated in an archaeological dig on the ancient Via Appia in Rome through the Art History department. This hands-on exploration and discovery transformed her connection to human history, the concept of time, and the planet—themes that became central to her art and practice.

Understanding her new culture through architecture proved diametrically opposed to her original intent. By the 1980s, beginning her career in New York City, the rise of Postmodernism and signature architects stood in contrast to her quest to design for all people. This was a time of tremendous exposure to the art world and proved pivotal in her choosing art as her platform to explore freedom, environmentalism, and a voice for her Latino culture.

After working in New York City, San Francisco, and San Antonio, Interiano Wise settled in Houston in the mid-1980s. Helping support her family became her focus as she developed, over the next 25 years, a sustainable residential architectural design firm based on energy conservation and reduced environmental impact. This work became the precursor to her art practice, using art as a platform for overarching environmental themes of creating empathy and coexistence with all life on the planet.

Since retiring from architecture in 2011, Interiano Wise has focused solely on her career as an artist. She has a robust, multifaceted practice spanning painting, assemblage, collage, printmaking, sculpture, performance with wearable art, video, and 3D design. Her first-hand experience with archaeology, coupled with her background in architecture and advocacy for all life on the planet, makes her work intentional. Her work is also deeply tied to her ancestral Maya intellectual heritage. As a Latinx artist, her research takes her back to her homeland, where she sources materials of identity with traceable DNA, bringing her full circle to where her artistic journey began.

She has represented El Salvador at a UNESCO Latin American exhibit in Paris and has been invited to exhibit her work at the El Salvador Embassy in Portugal.

By 2021, after being active in the Houston artists’ community and understanding first-hand the lack of representation of Latino artists, she used her community leadership to cofound and become the first board chair for ALMAAHH—Advocates for a Latino Museum of Art & Culture in Houston, Harris County, Texas.

Geraldina Interiano Wise currently resides in Houston, Texas, with her husband, Scott. She has three grown children, Maggie (Austin, Texas), Gabriella (Houston, Texas), and Scott (New York City), as well as three grandchildren. Interiano Wise’s studio is located at Winter Street Studios in Arts District Houston, which she opens to art projects in the Houston art community. The studio also serves as her laboratory for explorations in Art, Science, and the Brain. She is an artist in residence at the Brain Center at the Cullen College of Engineering at the University of Houston and has most recently presented at the NSF AccelNet Conference at UCSF.

Photo: Jeff Fitlow