Kevin Umaña was born in 1989 and grew up in El Salvador and Los Angeles. He received a BFA from San Francisco State University in 2014 and lives and works in Kansas City.  Umaña is the co-founder of The Ekru Project, an artist-run Kansas City gallery focused on contemporary, emerging and underrepresented artists. In 2017, he created a permanent installation at The United Nations Headquarters in New York City.

He has completed residencies at The Center for Book Arts, New York City (2019); Plop Residency, London, England (2018); and SIM Residency, Reykjavik, Iceland (2018). His work was featured in “Pattern Recognition,” curated by Amy Lincoln at Sperone Westwater in 2022. Institutions owning his work include The United Nations Art Collection, Fidelity Mutual Funds Collection, Center for Book Arts Library and The Marin Museum of Contemporary Art.