Nothing is wasted
The past is not lost to us. It is a living memory. This is how Ria's art offers a refuge from the wistfulness and longing of nostalgia. By bringing together historical fragments and day-to-day moments with tender reverence, she offers an invitation to weave the present and the past into a guide towards a hopeful future and a life of meaning.
In my world, art brings together past, present, and future. Every portrait, still life, and landscape honors not only the stories of a life lived but also holds wonder for a future made possible by the richness of what came before.
~ ria
About Ria
Ria is a visual artist living and working in St. Louis, Missouri. She was born and raised in the Philippines, migrated to the United States as a teenager, and has lived her adulthood in the Midwest. Unbeknownst to her, her great-grandfather was brought to the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, a legacy of America's imperial past. By sheer coincidence (or destiny) she moved to the historic neighborhood that once housed the Philippine Village at the Fair.
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Ria's approach to art and her visual aesthetic is very much shaped by her experience of living in between worlds. Her art embodies the felt sense of space and time that is often distorted in the act of crossing borders and time zones. Time is a character that appears in her work as a soft-edged memory or light and shadows slipping by. Despite having begun her journey 8,245 miles away, Ria finds herself standing on the very ground of her ancestral past, painting to honor the lives that came before her while holding wonder for all that their stories make possible.
ARTIST TALKS, LECTURES & WORKSHOPSÂ
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2025 The art of time travel and other mysteries of a creative life, Stl.org’s Bright & Early
2024 The Wonder and Complexity of the World's Fair book launch at Missouri History Museum
2024 Legacy of Prejudice at the 1904 World's Fair, Missouri History Museum
2024 Empowered Storytelling: Recollecting our Pasts, Shaping our Future - an art workshop with Ria Unson​
2024 St. Louis Art Museum lecture for St. Louis Public School Art Teachers
2024 Guest Lecturer, Missouri History Museum, 2024 Summer Teacher Institute
2024 Interrogating the colonized mind through contemporary art practices, Panelist, Association of Asian American Studies
Annual Conference, Seattle, WAÂ
2024 Featured Speaker, Midwest Filipino American Summit
2024 Featured Speaker, Decolonization in Asia Teach-in hosted by WashU Asian Multicultural Council
2024 High Noon at the High Low, Exploring legacies of the 1904 World's Fair with Ria Unson, St. Louis, Missouri
2023 Annual Meeting Featured Speaker, Cole County Historical Society, Jefferson City, Missouri
2023 Panelist, Americanist Dinner Forum: Moving Stories: Migration, Advocacy, Art, and Scholarship in Conversation, Kemper Art Museum
2023 Featured Speaker, NASPA APIDALA, Washington University in St. Louis
2023 Featured Speaker, Fall Speaker Series, Washington Public Library, Washington, Missouri
2023 Featured Presenter, Day of Dialogue and Action, Washington University in St. Louis
2023 Guest Lecturer, Stories Culture Taught Me class, Washington University in St. Louis
2023 Guest Lecturer, Mixed Mediums: Gender in American Visual Culture class, Washington University in St. Louis
2022-2024 Filipinos at the 1904 World's Fair: a legacy of race and empire, Missouri Speakers Bureau
2022 Guest Lecturer, Monumental Anti-Racism class, Washington University in St. Louis
2022 Filipinos and the 1904 World's Fair: a legacy of race and empire, East Central College, Union, Missouri
2022 Featured Speaker, Washington University in St. Louis
2022 Featured Artist, Discovery Tour: Women and Art, Missouri History Museum, St. Louis, Missouri
2022Â Filipinos at the 1904 World's Fair, St. Louis County Libraries Speaker Series
2022 Artist Talk, Stories we are told, Angad Arts Hotel, St. Louis, Missouri
2021-2024 Guest Lecturer, Washington University in St. Louis
2020 Panelist, Good Words and Broken Promises, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Missouri​
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AWARDS
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2025 1st Place, Reflections Unveiled: Contemporary Portraiture in the Digital Age
2023 Ann & Edgar Metzger Memorial Award
2023 Best of the Net Anthology
2021 Ann & Edgar Metzger Memorial Award​
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PUBLICATIONS
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2024 Contributing author, The Wonder and Complexity of the 1904 World's Fair, Missouri Historical Society Press
2022 New American Paintings, Issue 161
2022 The Santa Clara Review, 109.2
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RESIDENCIES
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2023 COCAedu University City High School Residency, St. Louis, Missouri
2021 Artist in Residence (virtual), Cel del Nord, Orîsta, Spain
