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Born in Houston, Texas, Sandra received a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2009, with a concentration in oil painting and additional studies in printmaking and video. Sandra has been involved in community outreach programs for all ages while living in Richmond, as well as internationally. As an Arts Mentor, she worked with a committee of seventeen neighborhood residents to visually represent the history of their neighborhood as part of a citywide initiative.  Most recently, she co-directed a multi-media project with inner-city children through Art180, a Richmond-based non-profit organization that believes every child can create change by sharing their stories through art. For many years, she has spent her summers at the Latin American Community Arts Project, a grassroots organization in El Salvador that promotes inter-cultural awareness through community arts workshops, and this past year her role was Assistant Director. 

As a first generation Salvadoran-American, historical collective memory is the primary influence and inspiration for her work. Sandra recognizes that there is a thread of internal conflict and deterioration of cultural identity that runs through herself and post-civil war El Salvador.  She uses her art to uncover the suppressed stories that every face, every voice and all hands hold. With this interest in engaging her audience, her studio practice has evolved to explore objects, sound, collaboration and interaction.  

Sandra believes the process of art is a powerful tool to awaken solidarity. She brings her experience to ArtCorps' collaboration with IEPADES and Oxfam America.

The apathy that she sees in communities in El Salvador and the United States affected by the fluctuating cycle of migration fires her work. 

“The thin line between personal and political has become blurred. The visual activity in my work explores the area between self and subject, representation and abstraction to capture the strength, perseverance and beauty that lie within the struggle and pain.”