Ricky Armendariz (b. 1969, El Paso, Texas) was raised on the U.S.-Mexico border, a region that heavily influenced his artistic, aesthetic, and conceptual ideas. Images that have cultural, biographical and art historical references are carved and burned into the surface of the paintings, drawings, and woodblocks. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from The University of Texas at San Antonio (1995), and his Master of Fine Arts from the University of Colorado at Boulder (1999). Armendariz is currently a Professor of Art at The University of Texas at San Antonio. In 2008, he received the Artpace Supplemental Travel Grant for travel to Mexico City, Mexico and in 2013 was an artist in residence at Kunstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin Germany. In 2017 he was the first artist in residence at the DoSeum in San Antonio, TX; and in 2018 at the Anderson Ranch Residency in Snowmass Village, CO. He has exhibited at the Denver Art Museum, The Dallas Contemporary, The Blue Star Art Center in San Antonio, and Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin. International exhibitions include: Liminal Space, DMZ Museum, South Korea (2018), Common Wounds, Bethlehem and Tel Aviv (2005), and SINAPSIS at the Galeria Corriente Alterna in Lima, Peru, sponsored by the United States Embassy in Lima (2002) and “New Prints” Kunstlerhaus Bethanien , Berlin Germany (2013), Texas Contemporary Art”, Lalit Kala Academy, National Academy of Art, New Delhi, India(2015). He is in the permanent collections of San Antonio Museum of Art, McNay Art Museum, Denver Art Museum, Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Massachusetts and the Bush International Airport Houston Art Collection, and the Cheech Marin Collection