María Velasco was born and raised in Madrid, Spain. She received her Bachelors Degree in Painting from the Universidad Complutense of Madrid in 1989, and her Master of Fine Arts in New Genre from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1993. In the fall of 1995, she began her appointment at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, where she currently works as an Associate Professor of Fine Arts.
Ms. Velasco has been actively exhibiting her work both nationally and internationally, in university and private museums, and contemporary art venues such as The Soap Factory in Minneapolis, MN, the Contemporary Arts Forum in Santa Barbara, CA, the ARC gallery in Chicago, IL, the Paula Cooper gallery in New York, NY. She has exhibited her work in Spain, Mexico, Argentina, and Paraguay. Her work has been featured in Art In America and Sculpture Magazine and is driven by installation and site-specific approaches. She has received numerous awards and grants and was the first student in art to obtain a grant through the Madrid-California Education Abroad program.
Other professional activities in which she has been involved include: independent curatorship, discussion panels, and leading workshops for artists nationally and abroad.