“I am my own muse, I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to know better.” – Frida Kahlo

“Against All Odds”

Sandra Ayala is an artist, who some may say, had the “odds of life stacked against her.”

She is a woman,
She is born and raised in the South Bronx, She is a first-generation Puerto Rican, She is a living artist.

Sandra picked up her first digital SLR camera in 2008 and the floodgates of her imagination were unleashed. She used her photography as a decompression tool and the gift of creative photography and story telling was born.

But how does one “create without a clue”? Sandra, an artisan, a wife, a mother, and a nurse realized exactly what she had to do and endure. She committed herself to her love of the arts and taught herself photography daily through trial and error. She vowed that her future goal was to inspire and motivate others to seek art in any medium while bringing her personal stories and culture to life.

Sandra’s creative style is “bold, captivating, diverse, imaginative,” and, at times, is described as “twisted”, but more importantly, it “provokes thought on many layers.” Many of her exhibits over the years have embraced her birthright as a Boricua. Frequently featured in her hometown of the Bronx, Sandra’s shows include “Living Latina”, “Femme Nation” and the “Latin American Art Triennial” show at Taller Boricua. In addition to the multitude of New York walls she has graced since 2011, Sandra’s work has been showcased on a Times Square Jumbotron in the “Crossroads of the World” in “Art Takes Times Square” in 2012. Her solo shows include “Beautiful Innocence” at Gallery 505 and “Story Time” at the Edgar Allen Poe Visitor’s Center to name a few. In 2016, in En Foco’s in Nueva Luz Vol 20.1. featured the work of the Bronx Women’s Photo Collective in which Sandra’s work graces the cover.

Sandra resides in the Bronx with her husband and is the mother of two children and two rescue pups.

For more information on Sandra’s work, please visit: www.SandraAyalaPhoto.com