Originally from Mexico City, Elizabeth Z. Pineda is an emerging artist. Her work explores complicated issues regarding immigration, identity, displacement, and migrant deaths that occur in the Arizona desert. Pineda speaks visually of community, touching on language barriers, culture, and society. Her practice is rooted in handmaking as an expression of her deep ties to the subject matter using historic and untraditional photographic, printmaking, papermaking, and book art processes.
Pineda’s work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions including the Maltz Museum, El Sueño Americano / The American Dream (Beachwood, OH), Phoenix Art Museum, 2024 Arizona Artist Awards (Phoenix, AZ), the Arizona Capitol Museum, Many Lives, One Community (Phoenix, AZ), and has been published in (In)visibility: Aesthetics of Undocumentedness (Fowler Museum at UCLA, March 2026), The World of Photography 2, Mediterranean House of Photography, (Fotonostrum Publishing, 2024), and The Experimental Darkroom: Contemporary Uses of Black & White Photographic Materials by Christina Z. Anderson (Focal Press, 2022).
She received (one of two) 2024 Sally and Richard Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards, Phoenix Art Museum. In 2023, her project,Maíz, was selected as Center’s 2023 Personal Award Recipient by juror Amanda Hajjar and was selected as the inaugural recipient of the Jay and Susie Tyrrell Excellence in Works By Hand Award (visitcenter.org). The same year, Pineda received the Pat Mutterer award at The Arizona Biennial, Tucson Museum of Art. She received winner and honorable mentions in the 18th Julia Margaret Cameron Awards and honorable mentions in the 20th Julia Margaret Cameron Awards. In 2022 her portfolio was named Outstanding Work by juror Christopher James for the Denis Roussel Award.
Pineda holds an MFA from Arizona State University and is a member of Undoc + Collective.
In addition to her studio practice, Pineda teaches photography as a faculty associate and supports Art History, Art Education, Museum and Curatorial Practices students and faculty as Graduate Program Manager at Arizona State University. Elizabeth resides in Surprise, Arizona. In her free time, she loves spending time with her family.