Star Montana (born 1987) is a Los Angeles-based photographer. Her work has been shown in museums and galleries such as the

Vincent Price Art Museum The Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM) is an art museum located at East Los Angeles College in Monterey Park, California, US. The museum is named after American actor Vincent Price who donated portions of his personal art collection to the college in ...

, The Main Museum, ArtCenter, internationally in Brazil, Ecuador, and Mexico, and in the L.A. Metro Vermont/Beverly station from 2014 to 2016. She has also been featured in articles in ''

Aperture In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane. An opt ...

'' and ''

Hyperallergic ''Hyperallergic'' is an online arts magazine, based in Brooklyn, New York. Founded by the art critic Hrag Vartanian and his husband Veken Gueyikian in October 2009, the site describes itself as a "forum for serious, playful, and radical thinking ...

.''

Early life

Montana grew up in the predominantly Mexican American

Boyle Heights Boyle is an English, Irish and Scottish surname of Gaelic, Anglo-Saxon or Norman origin. In the northwest of Ireland it is one of the most common family names. Notable people with the surname include: Disambiguation *Adam Boyle (disambiguation), ...

neighborhood of

East Los Angeles East Los Angeles ( es, Este de Los Ángeles), or East L.A., is an unincorporated area in Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2020 census it had a population of 118,786, a drop of 6.1% from 2010, when it was 126,496. For statistical purpo ...

. She describes her teenage self as a "street kid" who found photography when one of her friends showed Montana some photographs she took for a class at

East Los Angeles College East Los Angeles College (ELAC) is a public community college in Monterey Park, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. It is part of the California Community Colleges System and the Los Angeles Community College District. With fourteen communiti ...

, and Montana realized she could pursue photography as an art form.

Education

She is a first-generation high school and college graduate. She attended

but transferred and received her BFA in 2013 from the

School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by ...

in New York City. She is currently an MFA candidate at the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

Career

Montana is known for her photographs which capture her home community of Boyle Heights. Her first solo show was ''Tear Drops and Three Dots'' at the

in 2016. The show used candid photographs to chronicle a personal and community narrative of loss and redemption in the wake of her mother's struggle with narcotics, her illness, and the aftermath of her death from complications related to Hepatitis C in 2010. "Star Montana: I Dream of Los Angeles" at The Main Museum in 2017 captured Boyle Heights residents in meditative moments. The show included extensive, personal narratives alongside her photographs, allowing her subjects to fully explore and share the complexities of their lives. Her art bridges what she perceives as a gap in the art world. As she told ''Surface'' in 2017, “I think a lot of art is inaccessible to regular people,” she says. “They don’t feel worthy of it. I experienced that a lot.” Montana cites Joseph Rodriguez, who she first learned of as a teenager through a Google search of "East L.A. Photographer," as an inspiration and a mentor.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Montana, Star 1987 births Living people American women photographers East Los Angeles College alumni School of Visual Arts alumni People from Boyle Heights, Los Angeles 21st-century American women