The Arts
Gabriella Torres (CHS Class of 1997) is a visual artist, creative placemaker, and arts advocate living, painting, and creating in her hometown of Clinton, Iowa. In 2023, the Iowa Arts Council named her as an Iowa Artist Fellow to complement her receiving the Governor’s Arts Awards for Special Recognition as an Emerging Arts Leader in Iowa. Throughout the midwest, Gabi is renowned for her creative placemaking and public art projects that transform underutilized spaces into dynamic community gathering spaces and cultural destinations that help spur economic development and community growth. Originally a poet, teacher, and abstract artist, in 2021, she began developing large scale art projects that helped communities redefine themselves. In 2022, Gabi installed The Grove, an “art forest” that recast a downtown Clinton pocket park into an outdoor art gallery that features a new Iowa artist every summer. In 2023, with her partner Chris Shannon, she created Paint it Back, an annual street art festival that brings national and local artists together to cover an old 8,000 square foot garage in murals. What is now known as the Paint it Back Building has made the Northend a cultural destination, attracting visitors from surrounding areas each year. In 2024, Gabi implemented the massive art project Wildness, in partnership with Clinton County Conservation, that utilized all natural materials to connect residents to their natural landscapes. Her art career has been featured through Living Local on Iowa PBS, Arts Midwest in Minneapolis, the Iowa Arts Summit, the Iowa Arts Council, Iowa DNR, iLEAD Leadership, and the Professional Developers of Iowa. Through her advocacy and tireless work for the arts, the State of Iowa has recognized Clinton as an arts and cultural leader exemplified by Clinton becoming one of the inaugural towns in the state’s Creative Placemaking Accelerator Program. Gabi is still actively creating abstract pieces, and in November 2024, her work was displayed at Bitfactory Gallery in Denver.