Bio

Carolina Benavidez is a watercolor painter, originally from Montevideo, Uruguay. She moved to Arizona in 2006 and graduated from Metropolitan Arts Institute, where she started her watercolor journey. She then went on to receive her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting from Northern Arizona University in 2013. During her time in Flagstaff, she taught private art lessons to children and facilitated expressive arts activities for adults with disabilities at Hozhoni Foundation. These experiences inspired Carolina to pursue her Teaching Certification.

In the Fall of 2016, she took on her first full time position teaching Art at Valencia Middle School in Tucson. She was awarded Teacher of the Year in the Spring of 2017. Carolina taught Art and Spanish to K-8 students in Arizona public schools for six years.

She took a hiatus from teaching in 2022 to complete her Yoga Teacher Certification and travel to Uruguay, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Argentina. She looks forward to sharing all she has learned about Latin American cultures with her students at Metro Arts. During the Spring of 2024, Carolina received a grant from the City of Phoenix’s Office of Arts and Culture to complete the Educational Artist Residency program.

Carolina regularly sells her paintings at First Friday, local yoga studios and juried Art Festivals. She provides art healing sessions for women at community centers and domestic violence shelters, and teaches yoga in Downtown Phoenix.

It is an honor for Carolina to teach at the school where it all started. She looks forward to giving back to the community that accepted her fully and helped her find her voice as an artist.