SVAD - School of Visual Arts & Design

Dr. Ilenia Colón Mendoza received a B.A. in Art History and Archaeology from the University of Evansville in Indiana and her M.A. and Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Colón Mendoza’s major area of research is seventeenth-century Spanish art. In addition to the visual arts of the Baroque, she is also proficient in Caribbean and Latin American art, and the art and architecture of Ancient Rome. Her book entitled The Cristos yacentes of Gregorio Fernández: Polychrome Sculptures of the Supine Christ in Seventeenth-Century Spain under contract with Ashgate publishers examines the significance of the Cristo yacente sculptural type within the context of the theatrical elaborations of the Catholic Holy Week in Baroque Spain. Her article “Reading Devotion: Counter Reformation Iconography and Meaning in Gregorio Fernández’s Cristo yacente of El Pardo,” will be included in Methodological Studies of Christianity in the History of Art, Wipf & Stock Publishers, Oregon. The issues of pageantry, theater, and the connection between the creation of these images and the literature of the period are her focus. Dr. Colón Mendoza's current interests include exploring the issue of colored (polychrome) sculpture and its place in the art historical “canon”. She joined the University of Central Florida in 2010 and teaches Introduction to Art History I and II Honors, Visual Arts Administration, Women in Art, Mesoamerican Art, Mexican Art, Latin American Art, Twentieth Century Art, and Theory and Criticism. Her special topics courses include Polychrome Sculpture Through the Ages, The Age of Velázquez, Caravaggio and his Times, and The Caribbean-ness of Caribbean Art.