Artist Bio 

Born in April 1994, Iris Venancio is a Brooklyn-based visual artist, performer, and cultural producer whose work spans photography, storytelling, and community practice. For two decades, Venancio has explored image-making across styles ranging from nightlife to portraiture. In recent years, her practice has evolved toward documenting community in its fullest essence—treating photography as a living archive that safeguards memory and honors history.

  Venancio was an Artist-in-Residence at Eureka! House in 2021, and in 2022 she returned to develop and lead a residency program supporting six other artists from her community. She is also the Co-Director of The Haus IM and a 2024 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities in Place Grantee. Through these roles, she continues to explore how history, community, and art intersect as tools of preservation and care.

   Inspired by femininity, soulfulness, and self-expression, Venancio’s aim is to document moments of greatness, triumph, grace, and truth—whether in community or in her own life.

Now, she turns the lens inward, becoming her own historian. By documenting herself within her practice, Venancio reshapes the power dynamics of photography, offering new ways of accessing support in one’s body and community. In doing so, she ensures that her presence, alongside those she photographs, is held as part of the historical record.

Artist CV

2024, June
 

2023, February

2021, November