Statement

My very existence is predicated upon my grandparents’ families who crossed the border during the Mexican revolution. Thus, I have been compelled to depict these focal settings and celebrate Mexican American culture. I am currently painting border landscapes and landscapes of immigration detention centers, present, past and imagined, from Alcatraz to Alligator Alcatraz and exhibiting work honoring Latino farmworkers such as my grandparents.

I recently attended the De Young Museum Lowrider Culture Celebration and screening of the Ladies of the Lowriders films with a panel discussion. One of the first women lowriders spoke about seeing your own image reflected back in the cars. This really struck a chord with me, as a half Mexican artist, raised in her family’s car culture. I photographed the cars and am now painting a lively series based on my photographs. These works are a counterpoint to my detention center landscapes. To say proudly, we exist and our culture is something to be celebrated, is more important than ever when the community is living under great duress. “Art is the only weapon we can use against fear,” the Consul General of Mexico in Raleigh, Donahí Alba Arroyo, standing in front of my painting “Escape from Alcatraz” at our Inter-Latin American Artist Collective exhibition in Durham last December.