Lehmann Award Emerging Artist Winners: Private AZPA Member Talk and Tour

This exclusive evening will kick off with an introduction by Christian Ramirez, the Lee Baumann Cohn and Milton H. Cohn Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art and Director of Engagement at Phoenix Art Museum, Chrisian will talk about her background and her role at the museum. She will also talk about the Lehman Award and introduce the 2024 Emerging Artist winners Elizabeth Z. Pineda and Omar Soto.

Members will then be led on an exclusive tour of the 2024 Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards Exhibition by the artists, Elizabeth Z. Pineda and Omar Soto. Both artists will provide commentary on their own work presented in the exhibition.

Promptly meet in front of the Museum at 5:45 p.m.

This is a limited event of 25 members and is free.

Not a member but would like to attend? See membership opportunities.

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Images Above : Left: Reverencia: Arizona Migrant Death Mapping (detail), © 2022, Elizabeth Pineda, Right: Queen of the Angels, © 2023, Omar Soto, Inset Images: Left: © Elizabeth Z Pineda (Self Portrait), Elizabeth Pineda, Right: © Omar Soto (Self Portrait), Omar Soto

About Christian

Christian Ramírez is the Cohn Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art and Director of Engagement at Phoenix Art Museum. She manages the institution’s Arizona Artist Awards programs, including curating exhibitions of work by annual recipients. Ramírez also curates exhibitions drawn from the Museum’s collection and fosters relationships with regional and Arizona-based artists to elevate their work among statewide and national audiences. Her recent exhibitions include Safwat Saleem: The Unrequited Love Institute (2025), The Collection: Keith Haring (2024), and Gabriela Muñoz & Jenea Sanchez: Empowered Fronterizx Bodies (2023). In 2025, she received the Andy Warhol Curatorial Fellowship to support her research on the Movimiento Artístico del Río Salado (MARS), a Phoenix-based arts collective and gallery that was established in 1978 by and for local Chicano artists.

About Elizabeth

Originally from Mexico City, Elizabeth Z. Pineda is an emerging artist whose practice using historical and untraditional photographic, printmaking, papermaking, and book-art processes explores issues surrounding immigration, identity, displacement, and migrant deaths that occur in the Arizona desert. Pineda visually articulates community, touching on language barriers, culture, and society. Her work has been showcased in solo and group exhibitions nationally, and has been published in PhoenixTransect.org, Femme Fotale, Vol. V: Resistance, Resilience, and Hope, and The Experimental Darkroom: Contemporary Uses of Black & White Photographic Materials. Pineda holds an MFA in Photography from Arizona State University and is a member of Undoc + Collective. In addition to her studio practice, she teaches photography as a faculty associate at Arizona State University and works in Library Information Services at the University of Arizona, College of Medicine.

About Omar

Omar Soto (they/them) is a DACAmented photographer whose surreal imagery explores queer joy and escapism to navigate the marginalization they endure while living at the intersection of race, gender, and social class. Born in Tijuana in 1996, Soto migrated to the United States in 2000. With a passion for the arts, they studied at South Mountain High School under the institution’s magnet photography program, learning fundamental photography skills while enriching their artistic practice. For their featured series, Mediums of Hope, Soto worked with a team of costume designers, makeup and nail artists, hair and clothing stylists, jewelry artists, painters, fabricators, and models to create intricate, staged photographic scenes that mimic or draw inspiration from well-known art historical works, such as Sandro Botticelli’s (1445-1510) The Birth of Venus. Their images draw from inconography related to QTBIPOC (Queer and Trans, Black, Indigenous, People of Color) communities, as well as music, film, art, and religious expression commonly associated with Mexican and Latinx culture.

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