Category: Mixed Media

naipes, 2022, mixed media

A mixed media piece dealing with the post-genocidal legacy of the Spanish invasion of Mesoamerica through the medium of “naipes”. These images are accompanied by three text quotations:

“It’s important to begin with the coining of the term genocide. Raphael Lemkin first used the word genocide in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (1944). Lemkin spent an entire chapter defining the term, breaking it down into pieces that would help to clarify what genocide is, how it evolves, and the various forms that it takes on. Lemkin laid out multiple conditions that may lead to genocide, which included Colonial expansion, three method types (physical, biological, and cultural), each with multiple techniques… two phases—genocide as an event as well as genocide as an ongoing process, and multiple other facets and considerations for each genocide such as information on the “genocidists,” propaganda, victim responses, outsider responses, and the aftermath.”

“What’s more, Lemkin’s unpublished notes and essays show that he also based his original definition on the colonization of the Americas, and specifically Spain’s notorious treatment (otherwise known as the “Black Legend”) of the numerous tribes that used to occupy Central and South America.”

“Lemkin left behind copious notes, outlines, and unpublished articles on the indigenous Inca, Maya, Aztec, Caribbean peoples… The cultural genocides are all remarkably similar. Lemkin, in any of his notes that have been made available, does not acknowledge the component of disease responsible for killing the vast majority of the population; however, there is no real need to since he is not claiming physical genocide (which relies on violence and death-tolls to be measured) outside of some documented events of massacres and shifting populations around for the encomienda communities that the Spanish set up. Disease may have hastened the loss of cultural identity, but the fact remains that the indigenous populations were forced into encomiendas/haciendas, had to give up their religion and language, and had their sacred artifacts and locations desecrated. This had little if anything to do with rampant disease (aside from workers in encomiendas being relocated to replace communities wiped out by disease) and cannot be ignored.”

-Kristina Charleston “Reframing the Debate: Spain’s Colonization of the New World as Genocide”

“Entre 1545 y 1558 se descubrieron las fértiles minas de plata de Potosí, en la actual Bolivia, y las de Zacatecas y Guanajuato en México; el proceso de amalgama con mercurio, que hizo posible la explotación de plata de ley más baja, empezó a aplicarse en ese mismo período. El «rush» de la plata eclipsó rápidamente a la minería de oro. A mediados del siglo XVIII la plata abarcaba más del 99 por ciento de las exportaciones minerales de la América hispánica… en tres siglos España recibió suficiente metal de Potosí como para tender un puente de plata desde la cumbre del cerro hasta la puerta del palacio real al otro lado del océano.”

“Entre 1503 y 1660, llegaron al puerto de Sevilla 185 mil kilos de oro y 16 millones de kilos de plata. La plata transportada a España en poco más de un siglo y medio, excedía tres veces el total de las reservas europeas. y esas cifras, cortas, no incluyen contrabando.”

“Los metales arrebatados a los nuevos dominios coloniales estimularon el desarrollo económico europeo y hasta puede decirse que lo hicieron posible.”

-Eduardo Galeano “Las venas abiertas de América Latina”

“Los navegantes de Cristóbal Colón se entretenían al jugar cartas durante el trayecto del viaje y de igual manera, los pasajeros que viajaron de Europa a las Indias eran jugadores apasionados que se valían de los naipes para matar las largas horas que la nao recorría hasta llegar a su destino…”

-María Isabel Grañen Porrúa. “Hermes y Moctezuma, un Taror mexicano del siglo XVI”

la independencia de méxico, mixed media (2022)

A mixed media piece using iconography that details Mexico’s situation as a site of violence and control dictated by its proximity to the United States.

The first image is of a caged Mexican flag resting in a cactus. The eagle on the flag perched can be seen with a serpent in its beak.

The second image is of an Otomí-Mazahua rag doll perched in a Bougainvillea tree. These dolls also known as “Marias” are handmade and traditionally sold for income by indigenous artists to tourists in Mexico. The doll has a pistol laid across her lap.

The third image is a dead cat underneath the shade of an avocado tree.

agua coca-cola, mixed media (2022)

Agua Coca-Cola is a mixed media project made from polluted river water from the Río Cuautitlán in the State of Mexico bottled in a Ciel plastic bottle. Ciel is Coca-Cola’s Mexican bottled water brand and has been sold throughout the country since 1996.

Coca-Cola has a long standing history of plundering Mexico’s clean water reserves for production of its products while the country suffers from water pollution in its natural waterways from discharge of domestic, industrial, agricultural and mining residues by multinational corporations and industry. Millions of Mexicans face water scarcity in various regions of the country.

altar, mixed media, 2020

An altar I made for Día de Muertos in 2020 dedicated to the lives of children and adults that were cut short due to state violence and the coronavirus pandemic. The altar is composed of various food offerings and snacks for children. Along with refreshments, books, religious items and flowers.

In 2021, photography of the altar was featured in “Día de los Muertos” Art Exhibition at Nepantla Cultural Arts Gallery in Seattle, Washington as well as in “Honrando a los Muertos” Art Exhibition by Freedom Arts Collective at Local Distro in Nashville, Tennessee.

The central space of the altar holds a place to honor the memory of those who have passed on from this world. Pictured below are three migrant children who died in I.C.E. custody. From left, Felipe Gomez Alonzo (8), Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez (16) and Jakelin Caal Maquin (7).

Entre, mixed media collage (2020)

Entre is a work that came out of a time of sealed borders and quarantine lockdowns at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. The collage engages in multifaceted ways with the liminal patchwork space of being “in between”, using a variety of found objects that reflect the fractured history of Latin America in the face of imperialist colonization.

Melding broken pieces of technology and ephemera from the natural world, the work opens a temporal rupture between the past and the ever evolving present. A bloody bullet hole shatters the glass frame piercing the natural world and opening the veins of Latin America during the colonial period of European pillaging.

The materials in the composition engage with aspects of indigenous resistance, armed revolt and social uplift in the continued struggle for liberation in defiance of the continual U.S. imperialist agenda of exploitation, regime change and destabilization of the region.

Colibrí, 2021, mixed media artist book

In 2021 I co-curated an artist book with Palestinian artist Ali El-Chaer entitled Colibrí. This book was composed of twelve different art works from various international genderqueer artists who created various pieces defining their queerness through the interpretive lens of a “flag”. The funds from the sale of the book will be redistributed to cover the transitioning costs of trans artists. The images below show my contribution to the project. The book can be purchased here.

In 2019, I initiated a project called 69,550. It became an ongoing mixed media performance art piece engaged with the record number of known migrant children detained by the Trump administration in the United States that year alone.

The intent of the piece was to take a staggering numeral statistic of a group of children unseen and unheard and transform it into a tangible visual where each number has its own weight and significance representing a human life.

The work was created in tandem with the London based Art Dream Foundation for an online solo exhibition of my work at the start of the pandemic.

69,550 was also incorporated as part of a live online performance and vigil on July 4th, 2020 for the Thessaloniki Queer Arts Festival where the names of migrants who had died while in ICE detention during the Trump administration’s time in office were read and remembered.

Each number is painted in red, white and blue paint on the same kind of emergency blankets used in concentration camps of migrant children in the United States. By the end of the project, the painting will cover 100 sheets.