A native of Bogotá, Colombia, Paola Cabal has lived in Chicago since 2001. Trained in observational realism, Cabal continues to implement responsive looking in her increasingly diverse practice, which includes site-specific installation, collaborative work, and more recently photography and video, in addition to her ongoing engagement with more traditional drawing media. Alongside her own art-making, Paola Cabal is an educator at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and DePaul University.

Her work has been written about in ArtNews, The Chicago Reader, and the Chicago Tribune, among others, and is discussed in the book Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art, in an essay by Carol Becker. Paola has exhibited in Bogotá, Colombia, New York, Omaha, Charleston, and Ft. Lauderdale, in addition to numerous exhibitions in Chicago. She was visiting co-mentor for the 2010 WhyNot Place residency programme in New Delhi, India and in 2006, she was awarded the prestigious Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Individual Artist Award.

Paola Cabal was awarded a 2014 Illinois Arts Council Fellowship. Her work can be viewed in two permanent installations: Moving in Place in the office of the Dean of the School of the Arts at Columbia University, NY, and Analemma at the HairPin Arts Center in Chicago, IL.