My most recent and ongoing body of work, Root Rot (2021), is a study of colonial histories in Valencia, CA. Incorporating research from public archives, works range from large-scale, colorfully-rendered citrus labels to graphite drawings of World’s Fairs photographs. These reflect on the legacies of the California citrus industry and its history of indigenous dispossession, erasure of immigrant labor, and privatization of land management practices.


Points of Interest (2021) broadens this research to Newhall, California. This project comprises graphite drawings of historical documents: local oil field photographs and company stock certificates, as well as bisque-fired vessels referencing orange juice advertisements, and rubbings of the Walk of Western Stars along Old Town Newhall’s Main Street. Probing relationships between extractivism, culture industries, and gentrification, the exhibition temporarily occupied an unused retail space in the luxury apartment building Newhall Crossings.


Fía Benitez is a research-driven artist living in Los Angeles. In 2021, she produced a series of archive-based works which index colonial histories in Valencia and Newhall, CA. Fía also works as a peer tutor, and in 2020-21, co-organized the CalArts Paul Brach Visiting Artist Lecture Series. Fía holds degrees from Vassar College and California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).