Genevieve Ramos

2026 Spinal Cord Artist Residency (SCAR) Fellow

Genevieve Ramos

Genevieve Ramos (she/her/ella) is a Chicago-based painter whose luminous, intuitive work traces the intertwined landscapes of feminist theory, disabled embodiment, and cultural reimagining. Raised in a family of avid storytellers, she grew up surrounded by narrative, performance, and creative play—putting on shows with her cousins for the family camera and filling journals with doodles that hinted at the visual language she would later claim.

Her mother, who immigrated from Mexico as a young adult, was her earliest model of artistic initiative. Ramos watched her craft piñatas, lead workshops in their church, and transform bold sheets of Mexican paper into radiant flowers. These early rituals of color, making, and community continue to shape the vibrancy and expressiveness of her work today.

Ramos first encountered painting through art therapy after a life-altering car accident at age twenty. In that pivotal moment, art became a pathway back to herself—an opening, a reclamation, a way to translate lived experience into color, movement, and light. While she primarily works in acrylic on canvas, she also explores watercolor, oil paint, and collage, allowing each medium to expand the emotional and sensory terrain of her practice. Her brushwork carries tenderness and ferocity in equal measure, layering marks as stories accumulate across time.

She is the co-founder of Cuerpos Justificados, a disability-led collective reclaiming space through justice, art, and culture —elevating diverse voices, our lives, and our stories. Her public work includes Feminist Crip Paint Power, a permanent series of portraits on panel installed at the University of Chicago’s Disability Cultural Center. Her recognitions include the 3Arts/Bodies of Work Residency, the GoodHart “Elevating Diverse Voices” Award, and the Emerge Fellowship with the Longmore Institute on Disability.

Through radiant color, expressive mark-making, and material experimentation, Ramos invites viewers into the possibilities that unfold when our lives, bodies, and stories are boldly reimagined.