Ivette Spradlin is an award winning, Cuban-American artist whose work centers around the emotional aspects of transition, adaptation and communal ties. She holds a MFA from Tyler School of Art and a BFA from the University of Georgia. Since the 1990’s she has photographed and recorded the stories of members of different subcultures and their environs, such as punks and skateboarders, Cuban exiles in the United States, female-identifying artists, elderly jazz musicians in Pittsburgh, those who have experienced a Bigfoot sighting and her friends and neighbors during the 2020 lockdown.
In 2015, Spradlin and Lenore Thomas formed a collaborative team called Buff. Buff has created three bodies of work, shown in several exhibitions and publications, and is currently working on a new body of installation work for a solo exhibition at Seton Hill University that opens in September 2022.
Spradlin has shown her work nationally and internationally, and has taught photography and art at colleges and universities in and around Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, including Carnegie Mellon University for the last eleven years.
In addition to the Buff exhibition at Seton Hill, Spradlin will have a solo exhibition during Foto Focus in Cincinnati in October 2022. She recently relocated back to the Atlanta area where she is working on an oral history project, reconnecting with her former punk community, taking long night walks, and enjoying being an aunt.
