aru apaza is tryna be a mountain.
working with sound and painting, their practice unfolds through musicality and experimental, transitory gesture. Rooted in an Aymara worldview that embraces cyclical compulsions and rejects notions of purity, aru collaborates with materials gathered from natural environments—urban and rural. They are interested in exploring forms of radical kinship through shifting resolutions & insist on the potential of misalignment.
aru has exhibited across Abya Yala (the americas), prioritizing community spaces alongside commercial galleries. Spaces such as The Luminary, Abrons Art Center, The Gochman Family Collection, Hair & Nails Gallery, Yale Center for British Art, The American Indian Community House and along the local River.
recently aru was named a CCAM Fellow at Yale University & selected for the F.I.R.E (Forum for Indigenous Research and Exchange) cohort 2026.