Roxanne Márquez (she/they) is an interdisciplinary Chicana artist and scientist based in Albuquerque, NM, focused on making art that exists as intimate moments within ecological time. These moments of felt understanding are communicated (in)tangibly through the exploration of decomposable materials, textiles, creative writing, scientific research, and through collaborative gestures between soil, fungi, bacteria, plants, humans, and other animals. She draws on her experiences within ecology to create art that incorporates themes of decomposition, hidden microbial life, and healing through the restorative visceral experiences of the body and the land. By leaning into these subjects, she hopes to contribute to broader-scale change that prioritizes restoration of self, the land, and our entanglements with other beings — regardless of species.
Roxanne received her B.S. in Biology with a minor in Studio Arts at the University of New Mexico in 2024, where she completed a biology honors thesis after conducting an independent research experiment on how microbial addition to biocrusts can restore degraded soils and promote resistance to heat stress under climate change. Through all 4 years of her Bachelor's degree, she has worked at the Rudgers Lab, learning how to conduct field and lab-based research concerning climate change, soil health, plant-microbe interactions, and fungi. Roxanne has received multiple fellowship awards for her research including the NSF REU at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge in 2021. Additionally, she received a fellowship position in 2024 to work as a Soil Health Planner in collaboration with local Albuquerque farmers, helping further her understanding of soil health. With an interest in social justice, she worked as a mentor at the Women’s Resource Center, advocating for a campus culture that uplifts people of historically underrepresented backgrounds and providing one-on-one support to incoming freshmen. Roxanne also completed an Art & Social Justice apprenticeship at Harwood Art Center in 2023, which taught her skills in tilemaking and collaborating with other artists to design and install a mural in the International District of Albuquerque.
Roxanne Márquez highlights these multidisciplinary pursuits in her artworks. Particularly through her experiences as a student in Land Arts of the American West, she had the opportunity to present an ecologically-focused artist performance at the UNM Land Arts Symposium in May of 2023, and exhibited bio-art textile pieces in a Land Arts exhibition in December of 2023. She has also been featured in Conceptions Southwest magazine in 2024, displaying a collage on healing from sexual trauma through connection to nature. After working with people and soil in artistic, scientific, agricultural, and cultural contexts, she is inspired by the ecocultural futures and histories that are continually sown into the soils we stand on and strives to continue this deep investigation of our intertwinement with the land.