Mayor Matt Ryan's re-election campaign office - Binghamton, NYMinerva Diaz is a New York City-based interdisciplinary visual artist, visual historian, curator, storyteller, and community advocate whose work brings together art, history, memory, and place.
Born and raised in Manhattan's Lower East Side, Diaz is a self-taught artist whose unconventional path has taken her through the skilled trades, engineering, the automotive industry, arts administration, international advocacy, cultural programming, and community activism. These experiences inform a practice grounded in craftsmanship, research, and storytelling.
Working across graphite, mixed media, archival materials, and large-scale immersive installations, Diaz creates work that makes visible the people, stories, and histories she believes should not be forgotten.
ABOUT MINERVA DIAZ
Gracie Mansion | Women’s History | 2024
Gabriel Rice Way | Street Co-Naming | 2023Misty Copeland | Portrait Signing | 2019
Ossie Davis Way & Ruby Dee Place | 2019
Three-Year Street Co-Naming Campaign Led by Minerva Diaz
United Nations | 15th Annual CTAUN Conference
Invited Speaker & “Malala” Artwork Unveiling____________________________________________
Photographer Pete Souza | Signing | 2017ICP & THE NEW YORKER | 2025
Nearly four decades after entering the trades, in March 2025, a photograph of Diaz at work as an engineer became part of the International Center of Photography’s American Job: 1940–2011 exhibition and was selected by The New Yorker to illustrate its coverage - a full-circle moment for an artist who had spent years preserving the histories of others and unexpectedly found herself within the visual history of American labor. Play the video to see Minerva revisit her life as a young engineer nearly four decades later.
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Refrigeration Engineer | WABC-TV | NYC DC-9 All-Female Painting Crew
Minerva Diaz, bottom leftMinerva Diaz with Auto Tour Crew | Road ProducerA MESSAGE FOR TEENAGE MOTHERS | 1988
In 1988, Minerva was featured in a poster produced by the Organization for Equal Education of the Sexes, encouraging young women to continue their education and pursue careers after becoming mothers. Photographed by Freda Leinwand, the poster pictured Diaz both at work as an engineer at WABC-TV and reading with her young son.
BACK AT WABC-TV | 2019
Nearly twenty years after leaving WABC-TV, Minerva returned to the station as a guest on Here and Now, promoting the Harlem street co-naming honoring Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee alongside their grandson.
Before leaving, she went upstairs to the engineering department where she had spent 17 years of her career and visited some of her former colleagues.
She had once walked those halls as an engineer. This time, she returned as an artist, cultural advocate, and the woman behind a campaign permanently honoring two American icons.
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AN UNCONVENTIONAL PATH
Art was never a career Minerva Diaz planned. It was simply something she never stopped doing.
After earning her GED while training in the skilled trades, Diaz joined an all-female industrial painters’ apprentice crew in 1985 and later became a refrigeration engineer at WABC-TV, building a 17-year career in a field where few women and even fewer women of color were represented. She eventually left engineering and entered the automotive industry, working as a product specialist before moving into road production.
Through every change, art remained a constant. Diaz continued to draw and create privately, never imagining that the thing she had carried quietly throughout her life would eventually become the thread connecting everything that came before it.
Her path into the arts did not follow a traditional route. It grew through experience, through community work, cultural programming, advocacy, history, and the relationships she formed along the way. Her work eventually moved beyond the canvas into exhibitions, commissions, curatorial projects, cultural leadership, international platforms, historical preservation, public advocacy, and immersive installations. The skills gathered over a lifetime came with her: the precision of the trades, the problem-solving of engineering, the logistics of production, and an instinct for preserving the stories of people and communities.
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
2008–2020 — Art, Politics & Historic Signatures
Beginning with Dawn of a New Day, created during Barack Obama’s historic presidential campaign, Diaz produced works capturing pivotal moments and figures in American politics. Her original artwork and prints were personally signed by President Barack Obama, President Bill Clinton, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders.
2009–2018 — Art, Education & International Advocacy
Expanded her work into art, education, civil rights, and social impact, including presentations and artwork at the United Nations, playing a key role in bringing a monument to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Binghamton, New York, and participating in international cultural programs. Her artwork was presented to the Mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with a replica later placed in the Atomic Bomb Museum in Nagasaki, Japan.
2012–2022 — Dwyer Cultural Center
Served as Executive Director of Harlem’s Dwyer Cultural Center, producing cultural events, curating exhibitions, developing community programming, and preserving and presenting the histories of artists and communities of color.
2013–2016 — Exhibitions, Curation & Commissions
Exhibited during the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference, produced a 2015 International Jazz Day program featuring an exhibition of original artwork by Miles Davis, curated work celebrating photographer Kwame Brathwaite and the Black Is Beautiful movement, and received a commission from the New York Urban League honoring Mary McLeod Bethune. She was also an invited speaker at a Philippine Independence celebration, where she unveiled her work of Manny Pacquiao.
2019 — Ossie Davis Way & Ruby Dee Place
Completed a three-year campaign resulting in adjoining Harlem street co-namings permanently honoring Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee—a tribute rooted in their legacy, the Dwyer Cultural Center, and Diaz’s friendship with her mentor, Cliff Frazier.
2022–Present — Immersive & Visual Storytelling
Expanded her practice into historical exhibitions, archival storytelling, large-scale artwork, and hand-fabricated immersive installations exploring memory, community, identity, representation, and place.
2023 — Gabriel Rice Way
After her son, William Diaz Jr., proposed honoring the young athlete he had coached with a street co-naming, Diaz worked alongside Gabriel’s mother, Denise Thompson, to bring the campaign to fruition.
2025 — International Center of Photography / The New Yorker
A late-1980s photograph of Diaz working as an engineer, taken by photographer Freda Leinwand, was included in ICP’s American Job: 1940–2011 and selected by The New Yorker for its coverage of the exhibition.
President Bill Clinton | 2010
Signed a print of Minerva Diaz’s artwork depicting Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton
Miles Davis | International Jazz Day, 2015
Miles Davis & Minerva Diaz | 2015
Original works by Miles Davis and Minerva Diaz awaiting installation at the Dwyer Cultural Center.
Nbaba Mandela | Nelson Mandela Tribute
Minerva Diaz with Nbaba Mandela following the signing of her artwork honoring his grandfather Nelson Mandela
Manny Pacquiao | Philippine Independence Celebration
Minerva Diaz, guest speaker, unveiling her portrait of Manny Pacquiao
Hiroshima & Nagasaki | Dwyer CC, 2010
Minerva Diaz with Mayors Tadatoshi Akiba and Tomihisa Taue, and Cliff Frazier, during the presentation of her work
Barack Obama | Dawn of a New Day
Minerva Diaz with the original artwork signed by Barack Obama
NY Urban League | Mary McLeod Bethune
Commissioned artwork honoring Mary McLeod Bethune
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Monument | Binghamton, NY
Minerva Diaz, who played a key role in the monument dedication, with guest speaker Cliff Frazier and Mayor Matt Ryan and othr guests.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders | 2020
Signed an original work by Minerva Diaz at the National Action Network Convention