Artist Statement:
For my residency, I am going to install a wheat paste collage of various paintings I have made that reflect my time in Mexico. With the intention of allowing this foreign environment to affect me and inspire new work, I took long walks around the inner and outer areas of Puebla and Oaxaca, as well as visited various smaller sights on the outskirts. I took photos, and wrote about my experiences which I kept track of on a blog in order to record my time here.
The paintings that make up the collage range from sites that I felt enamored by in their context to objects which reminded me of people I love and admire. I also have integrated symbolism into my work in order to create a shared visual language between myself, the foreigner, and my audience here in Mexico. These symbols range from quotes, and objects to a figure. All of which I have my own personal connection to, but also contain observable meaning here in Mexico.
The centerpiece of my collage is a rendered image of Frida Kahlo. Although Frida has become sort of a cliché in Mexico (and even internationally) I chose to use a lesser known image of her and recontextualize it to resemble someone holy, or saintly. In my piece, she becomes a point of connection for me who admires her as a female painter, and my audience who view her as representing Mexican pride and identity.
My intention with this project has always been to establish a sincere and meaningful relationship with a new place. In the process, I have been forced to become very vulnerable in my new environment and therefore strip down the blockages of identity that initially caused me to feel like “the other”. By installing my piece in the public sphere, I aim to deepen my vulnerability and open up the conversation between myself, and my new audience. Also, my choice to create a collage holds a conceptual tie to the literal, and subjective layers of different thoughts and experiences I have had.
