Awarded in 2018: María Paz Muñoz is an MFA student in DigiPen Institute of Technology and will be graduating in 2019. María is from Santiago, Chile.

María has a BA in English Literature and Linguistics from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and after graduating started working as a high school teacher. It was then she started taking night Art classes at a local school. When she moved to Seattle in 2017, she decided to get a degree in Art and decided to apply to DigiPen Institute of Technology to do an MFA.

She is passionate about gesture drawing, expressive linework and capturing moments from daily life. Children’s books and animated movies have been an important influence on her work.

She would like to use her background in teaching as a tool to develop the arts and help her community. She is very thankful to the Robert B. McMillen Foundation for helping her economically, and for making her a part of a community of artists that believe in using the arts for change.