Ruth Leonela Buentello a visual artist and arts educator, whose practice is rooted in painting and often bridges with other disciplines, including community/public arts and collaborative installations. Her work centers on representations of Xicana/o working-class communities. In 2011, she earned her Bachelors of Fine Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She was nominated to receive the 2017 Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors grant. In 2019, her work was selected in the Outwin Boochever National Portrait Competition at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.  She has served as an artist-in-residence at the Joan Mitchell Center and at the Institute of Humanities University of Michigan, where she had her first solo exhibition. Her most recent work is currently exhibiting work at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.  Ruth is currently an elementary art teacher in San Antonio’s southside