Natalia Malone Hernández

Natalia Malone Hernández is a multimedia visual artist, musician, and educator from New York City of Spanish and Irish-American heritage. Natalia's love for community goes back to growing up in NYC in the early ’90s, falling asleep in her mother’s keyboard case to the sounds of rehearsals at Pregones Theater in the Bronx and dancing under the weeping willow tree at the 9th Street Community Garden. Natalia draws from these experiences to inspire her music and visual work, expressing a hope for a world where justice, history, love, and community are honored through spaces of shared art, music, and care.

Natalia is also known by the stage name Nahia Órla.

Her musical disciplines include singing, songwriting, percussion, musical production, live looping, and the guitar. Improvisation is a central component of all of her performances, where she takes words written by the audience and makes them into songs. Natalia draws musical inspiration from Jazz, Hip Hop, Salsa, Boleros, Traditional Irish Ballads, and Afro Brazilian rhythms (Natalia is a member of Batalá New York, an all women Afro Brazilian drumline). Growing up listening to the Fugees and Mary J. Blige, Natalia is drawn to the dance of toughness and vulnerability. From the Clancy Brothers, to Héctor Lavoe to A Tribe Called Quest, Natalia is inspired by lyrics that tell a story with humor and honesty. Inspired by Afrofuturism, and with a deep rooted belief that art is spiritual and ancestral work, she seeks to explore what it means to be true to herself while being a white girl making Black music.

Natalia's love for building and creating comes from her father, a carpenter and boatbuilder, who shared a love for the smell of sawdust, an appreciation for trees, and a curiosity for building. Natalia completed her BA in Studio Art at Hunter College where under the mentorship of ceramic artist Sana Musasama she learned a variety of hand-building and glazing techniques, including egyptian paste. Natalia’s grandfather shared with her the knowledge of film photography and left her with a set of lenses and camera that she uses in her work today. Natalia values the physical labor of creation and feels a deep spiritual connection between her pieces and the mentors who passed down the knowledge and skills that shape her practice.

NATALIA MALONE HERNÁNDEZ