Born in Bogota, Maria Teresa Gaviria spent her youth in Cartagena, Colombia. Her passion for traveling and new cultures has taken her to study French and Painting in l’cole Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris and then to Mexico, where she majored in Fine Arts in Universidad de las Americas-Puebla. She finished her graduate studies in 2004 at Escola Massana D’Art y Disseny, Barcelona, Spain, and worked independently, participating in projects such as web page, hat, handbag and furniture design, as well as showing her art work in international collective and solo shows. She worked as a fine arts instructor at Bellas Artes School of Fine Arts in Cartagena, as well as a private instructor for children. In 2009 she worked as General Arts Coordinator in the Colombian feature film Lecciones para un Beso, shot in Cartagena. The same year she moved to Los Angeles where she finished a Post Graduate Degree in Producing for Film and TV at UCLA Extension. 2009 marked the beginning of Cumbia Films, created by her and Felipe Holguin. Manana, their first short film, has been in more than 25 international film festivals and received several mentions. In 2012 she has been studying a Post Graduate degree in General Business Studies and developing TV spots for a TV channel for Ford, Verizon, Heineken, among other brands.

Gaviria maintains a balance between producing and art, freelancing as Production Designer on features, short films, music videos and TV pilots and commercials in Los Angeles, as well as producing for Cumbia Films, where they are currently developing two feature length scripts.