Shizu Saldamando was born and raised in San Francisco’s Mission District, and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. She received her B.A. from UCLA’s School of Arts and Architecture and her M.F.A. from California Institute of the Arts. Her drawings, paintings, sculptures, and videos have been exhibited both locally and internationally and experiment with a broad range of surfaces and materials. Saldmando’s portraiture employs painting and drawing on canvas, wood, paper and cloth, and functions as homage, as well as documentation, of subcultures within and around the Los Angeles metropolitan area.