Artist Statement

I am a Latina artist and activist. As a child I drew on everything in sight. My parents realized that their walls were covered with pencil marks and decided to channel this energy by placing me in art classes. Since then, my life has been captivated by art. As a kid growing up in Indiana, I never saw the difference between my family and everyone else's, but when we moved to Alabama, it became exceedingly clear to me at a young age that I was inherently different.

 

As a high schooler I found my culture and heritage to be a source of empowerment and inspiration. As a first-generation American, I chose to think of my cultural background as a reason to distinguish myself as opposed to being degraded by it. I began exploring my cultural identity and how I could portray this through my artwork. When the Muslin ban occurred, it became the singular most pivotal point for my inspiration; I realized that the point of view of immigration in America had to change. I gained real world experience with my recent trips abroad to Spain and Central America and when I participated in local DACA marches, both which inspired me to create art that went beyond my global perspective.

 

Around the time I decided to focus on immigration, I won my first National Scholastic Arts and Writing Award, and my point of view as a young artist completely changed. I never imagined that a singular piece of my artwork could make an impact on a national scale. I felt now more than ever the need to express my message to the American public. I began to seriously consider every aspect of my work: doing research, paying attention to detail and aesthetic, and finding the meaning.

 

My work uses traditional techniques in unexpected ways, often times pushing the viewer to think further than what is presented. Every detail is thought through and researched prior to the final product. As an artist I try to vary in mediums, yet portray the same common theme of immigration. This is to show the literal variation in my work and to symbolize America’s diverse cultural identities. In my artwork I tend to differ between the obvious and the abstract when it comes to my concept, but I never deviate from it. The hidden Bible verses or cameos of my other works in different pieces, though underlying, are under the umbrella of immigration in America.