sofia belen criswell


sf based
artist + organizer


  1. Painting  
  2. Book-making
  3. Community Engagement



  1. Shop 
  2. Bio/CV


︎︎︎Email
︎︎︎Instagram




I am a multidisciplinary artist currently based in San Francisco, with a background in design, curriculum development, and cultural organizing.

My artwork explores what it means to navigate womanhood within a globalized, technocratic America. I reflect on themes of change, identity, and connection—layering vibrant colors and symbolic imagery to evoke emotional, environmental, and political tension.

My practice blends sincerity with playfulness, drawing from personal memory, cultural inheritance, and the rhythm of everyday life.
As a Venezuelan-American, my heritage is an integral part of my work—it shapes how I express myself and deeply informs my visual language.





edu.

BA University of San Francisco, class of ‘24
Urban Sustainable Development – SIT Spain (Summer 2024)
International Relations – Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia (Fall 2023)


---

selected exhibitions


2025
Summer Open, Small Works, San Francisco, CA

Nature, Place, Tradition, Woods Lowside, San Francisco, CA

Back2Backyard, The Concrete Cut, San Francisco, CA

38th Annual Solo Mujeres Exhibition, MCCLA, San Francisco

BOM Magazine Issue 5 Release Party, Secret Riso Club, Brooklyn, NY

2024
Piece of Mind, The Art Room, Los Angeles, CA

Towards Remembrance: Thacher Annual Exhibition, San Francisco, CA


2023
Metamorfosis, La Candelaria, Bogotá, Colombia
 
---

organized

2025
Fire Relief Art Market, San Francisco, CA
(Co-organized w/ Maya Jane Visconte Jaramillo — 20+ artists, live screen-printing, DJ sets)

2023
Metamorfosis, Bogotá, Colombia
(Co-organized cultural event with profits donated to Benposta Colombia, a youth rights nonprofit)


---

publications

2025
Marisolandia by Michelle Cruz Gonzalez — cover art
(published novel)


---

talks / other
2025
Problem Library, Artist Talk & Demo (with textile engineer Elizabeth Meiklejohn – creative constraints, 3D weaving, process design)

sofia belen criswell


sf based
artist + organizer

︎︎︎Email
︎︎︎Instagram





Paranoia warped into a gravity which spread a smothering blanket on an evolutionary launch pad. Vision was tested on blank sky and voice said, "Let me tell you about the time that something occurred." Medication caused an ear to hear and a conflict of interpretation arose. Landscapes were drawn from a plague of particles, and the burden was distributed. The law would return as inflated skins while music initiated architecture. Animals, living through a velocity of fear, began to modify their behavior to comply with human observation, thus dropping a keystone into the eggshell honeycomb of anthrocentric history since. As for the plants, they had been with the music. Science procured a steepled shell dressed for immortality, hollow to hold the music. Emotion repelled all opinion and refused to consider its origin. Apples happened, bringing acids and enzymes, the spinning recorder disguised as an endless bouquet. Things became erotic at the drop of a hat. A tyrant placed an apple on a table and lorded over it. As a fish realized it held a monkey inside itself and expelled it on the beach in a larval salamander form, the voters clamored for more circles and the whole rig began to rotate. Books were used for fuel and money and everybody was writing them. The planets turned inside out to expose their freight. No charges were pressed because all involved agreed that they could die. These are secrets a world sung to me truer than the truth. A young order of birds that eats the eyes of believers. Science predicted forms of worship and reveled in them. An orgy of mutation took place for many years between stones, near water, and inside clouds. The people bound their feet with the skins of the animals to trample their own cities and each other. They developed external organs like guns and television sets. They believed that they owned things. One mind in a generation will hear the eternal broadcast of the voice saying, "Let me tell you about the time that something occurred."