Marianna Olague in her studio. (Courtesy of the artist, 2023)
ABOUT
Marianna Olague’s work centers on life in the borderland desert of El Paso, Texas. Primarily through portraiture, she explores what it means to be Mexican American along the border, offering a glimpse into the private lives of her family and close friends, who serve as models for her vibrant, colorful portraits. Often focusing on the neighborhoods where she grew up, place plays a significant role in her work—celebrating culture and providing insight into the experiences of low-income Mexican American communities.
Marianna Olague has an MFA in painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI, and a BA from the University of Texas at El Paso. Her work is included in numerous private and public collections, notably the Flint Institute of Arts in Flint, MI, the El Paso Museum of Art, and the Cranbrook Art Museum. In 2024, Olague completed a mural in the Patricia and Jonathan Rogers Grand Lobby as part of EPMA’s Frontera Forward initiative, established to advance the understanding and appreciation of the El Paso/Ciudad Juárez border community through the arts. Olague’s painting, Customer Service Representative, 2020, was included in the Outwin 2022, American Portraiture Today, which opened at the Smithsonian Museum’s National Portrait Gallery in April 2022 and traveled through 2024. Olague’s work has been shown in multiple exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit including in the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX, Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI and the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. Olague recently served as the inaugural Artist in Residence at the El Paso Mexican American Cultural Center (2025). She was also awarded a Chinati Foundation Residency in Marfa, TX (2021), and the Künstlerhaus Bethanien Residency in Berlin, Germany (2019).
Marianna Olague lives and works in El Paso, Texas. She is represented by David Klein Gallery.