Grimanesa Amorós is a Peruvian-born American artist and one of the pioneering women in light art. Since 2002, she has used light as both material and language, creating site-responsive sculptures that transform architecture into experiences of memory, perception, and public encounter.
Her practice draws on cultural legacies, natural phenomena and the shifting perception of time. Technology is central to the construction of her work, but never its subject alone; it functions as a medium through which light, place and collective experience are made visible. Across public spaces, museums, cultural institutions and landmark architectural sites, Amorós uses light to create moments of shared perception — encounters that ask viewers to reconsider their relationship to place, history and one another.
Rooted in her Peruvian heritage, Amorós’s work often emerges from direct engagement with the communities and architectures in which it is installed. Each project is developed in dialogue with its site, allowing the surrounding environment to become part of the work itself. In this sense, her sculptures do not simply occupy space; they draw space with light, merging viewer, architecture and illuminated form into a single experience. Amorós has presented her work extensively across the United States, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. She has been a featured speaker at TEDGlobal, a recipient of NEA Visual Arts Grants Fellowships, and a participant in the Art in Embassies Program of the U.S. Department of State. Her work has been exhibited at and with institutions including the Ludwig Museum, CAFA Art Museum, Katonah Museum of Art, Seoul National University Museum of Art, and other major cultural and public sites internationally.
