The first installment of Nao Bustamante’s Voice Memos, selected by the artist for X-TRA Online.

These recordings are the quick and dirty notes-to-self and little ditties that offer a glimpse into the artist’s thinking process. Tomorrow’s great ideas in their most embryonic form. The short verbal sketches are too brief to be entirely diaristic, but through their wry humor manage to be disarmingly personal, and reveal Nao as an amateur songwriter and lover of folk music.

Check out Voice Memos Vol. 2 >

Nao Bustamante is an internationally known artist, residing in Los Angeles, California. Bustamante’s precarious work encompasses performance art, video installation, filmmaking, sculpture and writing. The New York Times says, “She has a knack for using her body.” Bustamante has presented in galleries, museums, universities and underground sites all around the world. She has exhibited, among other locales, at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, the New York Museum of Modern Art, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Sundance International Film Festival/New Frontier, El Museo del Barrio Museum of Contemporary Art, First International Performance Biennial, Deformes in Santiago, Chile and the Kiasma Museum of Helsinki. Bustamante is alum of the San Francisco Art Institute, New Genres program and the Skowhegen School of Painting and Sculpture. Currently she holds the position of Professor of Art at the USC Roski School of Art and Design. There, she also serves at the Vice-Dean of Art and the MFA Director.