ABOUT
Tania Bilbao is an interdisciplinary artist whose exodus from a career in the professional audio industry sparked her journey into a previously dormant visual arts practice. Of both Spanish and Cuban descent, Bilbao has had a passion for arts and music her whole life. She first studied illustration and cartooning through Art Instruction Schools. Experience as a DJ lead her to study Communications, which would eventually result in an Executive Director position in the Pro Audio Industry before founding Gruuvn-Arts, LLC in 2016. This venture allowed her visual arts background an opportunity to flourish alongside her music career. By providing artwork and music entertainment for art galleries, art events, and charities, Bilbao has become known for enhancing the overall visual arts experience through her unique ability to unite audio and visual into a wholistic experience. She has likewise designed costumes and props for high end events, which naturally paved the way for developing a line of wearable art inspired by her existing studio practice. Currently, Bilbao works full-time as a visual artist out of her studio in Miami, Florida.
ARTIST STATMENT
Tania Bilbao is a visual artist working across a variety of media including acrylic, oils, ink, wearable art and any other material that manages to spark her sense of creative intrigue. While earnestly asking questions surrounding meaning and direction within one’s life, her work carries a rich, nostalgic feel that maintains a warm approachability. All of her imagery radiates a love for the artistic impulse, and she constantly strives to produce relatable work centered on universal messages that stimulate dialogue with her audience.
Visual motifs actively play through Bilbao’s work, and this is true for the ideas she is contemplating. As the world around her fluctuates and changes, this influences her ideas as well, thus manifesting onto the canvas as a fusion that is uniquely her. A renewal during the course of her unique life journey informed the messages she seeks to relay. Experience as a DJ coupled with a background in Communications lead her to a career within the pro audio industry as an executive director. This motivated the formation of her own company, Gruuvn-Arts, LLC: an ideal intermingling of her visual art, music, and entertainment backgrounds. She is enthralled with exploring how choices affect one’s trajectory, as well as the role chance plays in this regard. These concepts unfold in the lives of each viewer, who can relate based upon their own past experiences and form distinct connections. Embodying fearlessness and boldness in the face of adversity is important to Bilbao, and she hopes to encourage this in the lives of those who engage with her work as well.
Bilbao’s sense of humor inevitably seeps into what she produces, and tools such as wordplay and wit regularly make an appearance. While foregoing any singular style, her deep connection with music influences the emotional way in which she produces art, manifesting as a retro aesthetic often characterized by an aged-quality she achieves through manipulation of a medium. As an interdisciplinary maker concerned with chance and choice, experimentation plays a key role in her practice. This has led her to uncover new possibilities by revisiting certain media and incorporating aspects of one process into another, allowing the outcome to inform the overall direction. The habits of each medium and these discoveries facilitate her decisions for every piece as she ultimately seeks to use that which will best serve the final image. Bilbao never allows herself to pursue one mode of creating, but instead challenges herself to unlock new approaches that are always authentic to her ever-evolving practice.
CV
Education
2011 Degree in Cartooning & Illustration, Art Instruction Schools, Minneapolis, MN
Exhibitions
2023 Unusual Frida Art Show, Osceola Arts, Orlando, FL.
2023 Unusual Frida Art Show, The Camellia Room at Leu Gardens, Orlando, FL.
2021 Pajaro Pride Group Exhibition, The Box Gallery, West Palm Beach, FL.
2019 Annual Art Competition, Studio 18 Art Gallery, Pembroke Pines, FL.
2018 Annual Art Competition, Studio 18 Art Gallery, Pembroke Pines, FL.
2017 Annual Art Competition, Studio 18 Art Gallery, Pembroke Pines, FL.
2016 Annual Art Competition, Studio 18 Art Gallery, Pembroke Pines, FL.
2015 Annual Art Competition, Studio 18 Art Gallery, Pembroke Pines, FL.
2014 Juried Group Show, Pembroke Pines, FL.
2014 The Miami Mixer Group Exhibition, Pembroke Pines, FL.
2012 Works in Progress: Imagination Squared, Pembroke Pines, FL.
2012 Photography by Women, 6th St. Container, Miami, FL.
2011 Glass Gallery Group Exhibition, Glass Gallery, FL.
2011 2nd Annual Off the Canvas Event, Beachside Montessori Village, Hollywood, FL.
2010 Glass Gallery Group Exhibition, Glass Gallery, FL.
Art Fairs
2022 Local Art Club: Art Beach, Miami Beach, FL.
2012 Art on Palm Festival, Hialeah, FL.
2012 Philanthrofest, Miami, FL.
2009 Art on Palm Festival, Hialeah, FL.
Press
City of Pembroke Pines, “Spectrum Art Exhibition”, online and printed article, March 21, 2019
Sun Sentinel, “Concept to Creation”, newspaper article, January 13, 2017
David Frost Museum, “Mobile Mammography Art Initiative”, online and printed article, Florida State University, 2014
Miami New Times, “Philanthrofest”, online article, April 16, 2012
Art Slant, “ Photography by Women, 6th St. Container”, online article, 2012
Collections
Mammography Art Initiative
Private collections in the US and abroad