Dominick Cocozza (b. 2001, Mazatenango, Guatemala) is a Guatemalan American (Maya Tz'utujil) painter currently based in Queens, New York. Cocozza earned his BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 2024. His painting practice explores themes of cultural reconnection and storytelling as a transnational adoptee of Maya Tz’utujil heritage. The recurring Guatemalan worry-dolls in Cocozza's works, also known as muñecas quitapenas, become stand-in figures to depict himself, his partner, and honor ancestral resilience. He invites viewers into a playful worldbuilding orbit that forges Indigenous futurity, community kinship, and romance.
Cocozza has participated in group exhibitions at the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC; The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC; Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) Art & Design Gallery in New York, NY; Kates-Ferri Projects in New York, NY; Southampton History Museum in Southampton, NY; The Pantheon Institute in Rome, Italy; Gallery 263 in Cambridge, MA; United States Capitol Building in Washington, DC; Junior High LA Gallery in Los Angeles, CA; Woods Gerry Gallery in Providence, RI; RISD Museum Gelman Gallery in Providence, RI; Providence Art Club in Providence, RI; 82Parris Gallery in Portland, ME; Yellow Barn Studio and Gallery in Glen Echo, MD; Radford University Art Museum in Radford, VA and the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, VA. His debut solo exhibition Me acuerdo (I Remember), opened at Aunty's House in Providence, RI, in October 2025.
His works have been featured in the Boston Art Review, CNN, BBC News, Voice of America (VOA), Arlington Magazine, Soy Migrante, and Prensa Libre Guatemala. He is a recipient of the National Society of Arts and Letters Washington, DC chapter Highly Commended Award Scholarship and the 2024 Florence Leif Award sponsored by the RISD Painting Department. Cocozza is an alumni artist-in-residence at the Vermont Studio Center (VSC) in Johnson, VT, and Ma's House Residency in Southampton (Shinnecock Indian Nation), NY (2024). He is currently a 2026-27 ARTWorks Fellow at the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning (JCAL) in Jamaica, NY.