Biography

Xelestial Moreno-Luz is an artist from South East and Central Los Angeles who lives in San Diego and works in between and across Los Angeles and San Diego counties. Xelestial practice explores lens-based approaches, operating in the mode of portraiture, with an emphasis on Latine transgender communities. Her visual work depicts trans bodies in performance, fugitivity, and collaboration. She has spent the past ten years working and learning in coalition with community members dedicated to confronting immigrant injustice, fostering transgender liberatory spaces transnationally, expanding the field of queer and transgender art education, and increasing access to HIV resources to communities of color. Xelestial has received grants from the Ford Foundation, UC San Diego, the Center for Cultural Power, and the California Arts Council to expand the visual landscape of transgender communities across the Americas. Xelestial is pursuing an MFA (27') in the Visual Arts department at the University of California, San Diego, where she also holds a BA (20') in Media. She is the founder and CEO of Saturn's Wish, a transgender, non-binary, and intersex arts and culture organization uplifting communities of color in Southern California and beyond.

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