2012 MFA summa cum laude, California College of the Arts
2007 BFA summa cum laude, University of Michigan School of Art and Design
Cara Levine is an artist based in Los Angeles, CA. She earned a BFA from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI (2007) and an MFA from California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA (2012). Using sculpture, video, and socially engaged practices, she explores the intersections of the physical, metaphysical, traumatic, and illusionary. She is the founder of This Is Not A Gun, a multidisciplinary project aiming to create awareness and activism through collective creative action. Her work has been presented in one-person, group exhibitions, and participatory events in venues around the world, such as The Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco (2023), MOCA Geffen Warehouse, Los Angeles, CA (2020); Creative Time, New York, NY (2019); The Anchorage Museum, Anchorage, AK, (2019), Tenderloin Museum, San Francisco, CA (2017); Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, Israel; Wattis Institute For Contemporary Art, San Francisco, CA (2012); and Kyoto Seika University, Kyoto, Japan (2006). Levine has participated in residency programs, including Santa Fe Art Institute (2017); The Arctic Circle, International Territory of Svalbard (2017); Sedona Arts Colony, Sedona, AZ (2016); SIM Residency, Reykjavík, Iceland (2015); Anderson Ranch, Aspen, CO (2014); and Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT (2013). Levine is currently an associate adjunct professor in Fine Art and Foundations at Otis College of Art and Design and has worked in the disability arts community since 2011 in roles at various progressive art studios, including the Exceptional Children’s Foundation, Inglewood, CA, and Creative Growth, Oakland, CA. She organized the first annual Self-Taught Artists Fair with Public Annex in Portland, OR in 2017.
- 2023 Mandel Institute Cultural Leadership Fellow, 2023
- 2023 Montalvo Arts Center Lucas Arts Fellowship Residency Awardee, 2023
- 2022 Courageous Leadership Award, Women Against Gun Violence (WAGV), May 2022
- 2020 Grant awardee, Reciprocity: LA Artist Retreat, Collaborative Projects, from American Jewish University, Aug. 2020
- 2023 Cara Levine: To Survive I Need You To Survive, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA, Feb - July 2023
- 2022 Regardless of the Weather, New work by Cara Levine, Mothership HQ, Beacon Building Los Angeles, CA, May - June ‘22
- 2021 DIG; A Hole to Put Your Grief In, Shalom Institute, Malibu, CA, August 2021
- 2020 This Is Not A Gun, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, AIR Project Space, Nov. ’20 - Jan. ‘21
- 2019 Emerald Mother for North by Northwest, Anchorage Museum, AK, May – Oct ‘19
- 2022 Crafting Change, Macmillan Press, edited by Jessica Vitkus
- 2022 Social Practice Art: Technologies for Change, Routledge Press, editors Xtine Burrough and Judy Walgren
- 2021 today is a very very very very gummy place, publication project by Pablo Serret de Ena & Runa Press, ed and designed by José Quintanar & Pablo Serret de Ena, May 2021
- 2020 This Is Not A Gun Book, with Sming Sming Press and Candor Press, April 2020