Artist Tina La Porta’s ‘Side Effects’ during Mental Health Awareness Month

During Mental Health Awareness Month this May, experience South Florida artist Tina La Porta‘s presentation SIDE EFFECTS, now on YouTube. The artist originally gave this talk at the NSU Art Museum last Spring in April 2019.

Artist Tina La Porta presents ‘Side Effects’, a series that explores and expresses her struggles with her diagnosis of mental illness. “Since being diagnosed with schizophrenia, my work has become a method to talk about my disability through the language of visual art. In this sense, despite my disability, I am able to express myself and be a vital part of society,” says La Porta.

Born in 1967 in Chicago, La Porta moved to New York’s East Village in 1992 to pursue her Master of Fine Arts degree at The School of Visual Arts. Her work has been exhibited in South Florida and nationally and internationally at The New Museum, NY; Museo Nacional Centro de Art Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain; ƒcole SupŽrieure Nationale des Beaux Arts, Paris, France; Museu do Essencial e do Alem Disso, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, England; San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA; Centre Cultural de la Fundaci— “la Caixa,” Barcelona, Spain; The Kitchen, New York, NY.

“Miami-based artist Tina La Porta’s body of work ‘Side Effects’ is a catalyst for acceptance and awareness. Rather than placing an emphasis on the inherent darkness of mental illness, drug addiction, and social interaction, La Porta translates a highly misunderstood and popularly fascinating condition into an elegant and powerful aesthetic,” said Kat Wagner, Editor of Miami Art Scene™.

Her work is included in Public Collections such as The Whitney Museum, New York, NY; The New Museum, New York, NY; The Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art at Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY; Sound Art Museum, Rome, Italy; The Young At Art Museum in Davie Florida and The Vasari Project, Miami-Dade Public Library System in Miami, Florida.