Grade: Senior
Materials: Acrylic paint on stretched canvas
Dimensions: 24″ x 36″
Description: I created this piece for my final senior body of work, my concentration. For this work, I was specifically focusing on negative stigmas surrounding latina women, especially those portrayed and encouraged in the media, and how they cause harm. I interviewed members of my family who identify as latina and spoke with them about their experiences, also sharing mine. After hearing their stories I wanted to illustrate them in a place of power, taking back what it means to be latina and showing that we are not one-dimensional stereotypes the media and much of America believes us to be. That within latin culture that is so much more rich and complex than what meets the eye.
Artist Statement: Before coming to the Chicago High School for the Arts, ChiArts, I was self taught and interested in many different forms of art making such as drawing, photography, textile work, sewing, and sculpture. Now in my fourth year, while I have explored many of these ways of art making, I am more focused on drawing and painting. It’s through these 2D mediums that I have really honed my skills and strengthened passions, both new and old. My work serves as a space to explore what intrigues me: the human condition, consciousness and the ways in which we interact with one another under one society. Specifically, the human experience such as our relationship with the self and our identity, injustices inflicted on others from societal structures, and our familial relationships and how they unite us. I often spend a lot of time questioning and trying to unwrap these things for myself, this curiosity being a driving force of motivation for my practice. My practice enables me to dive deeply into these subjects and oftentimes to do extensive research, from watching documentaries to interviewing those around me. This research is heavily reflected both in how I arrange the pieces as well as the subjects I choose to illustrate.
In my current, final senior body of work, I am focusing on various social issues, most of which have stemmed from colonization and capitalism. Through these pieces, I hope to spark thought in my audience and enable them to question the systems we support and our places within them, as a starting point for hopefully creating meaningful change in the future.
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