In-person artist talk: May 5, 11:45-1:15pm

St. Catherine University’s annual exhibition of student artwork is featured in Rooted Forward. These artist scholars describe their spring 2022 showcase: “Personal reflection and elements of nature define the art presented in Rooted Forward. The work explores a variety of themes as artists delve into themselves and the world to find inspiration. The artists express concepts of nature, movement and organic forms. This show demonstrates the duality between the artists’ roots and the cusp of what is yet to come.”

Artist Statement: My artistic vision stems from two places. On the one hand, my intense fascination with the world and everything living inside it is where my inspiration is rooted. From the unknown mysteries of the cosmos to the intricate detail of the forest floor, I can’t help but feel astonished by the presence of all life on the earth. Through my art-making I seek to record and reflect on the moments in my life when I feel the warmest, safest, and most connected to the universe.

On the other hand, my artistic vision is heavily influenced by the status of the world, and the people on it. At this point in the world’s history, the globe is dominated by people, and is suffering our causes. I find myself creating work that both reflects coming to terms with the status of a world infected by humans, and seeking to find ways to make positive change for the earth and the lives of the people here.

As I finish up my degree in Art Education here at St. Kate’s, I am inspired to use art-making as a tool for social justice and human connection. I hope to influence my future students to do the same, while simultaneously exposing them to the incredible beauty of the universe through the arts.

Human life and personal growth is just evolution on fast-forward. As a natural history enthusiast and person who has drastically altered their adult body, I live in and make art about the overlooked, “ugly,” and “unfinished” phases of forward momentum. The imagery I choose revolves heavily around mythology, science-fiction, evolutionary history, and ocean ecosystems, particularly deep sea life.

Despite my initial focus on 2D work, I have been dipping my toe into sculpture since June of 2021. I enjoy working with my hands and I feel bonded to my ceramic and multimedia work; the process feels very much akin to making a friend. Long hours spent bent over emerging faces and bones make me feel like an archaeologist, surgeon, dentist, dermatologist, and physical therapist all at the same time. We spend a lot of time together; far longer than I spend with my human friends.

My large-scale sculptures are made from hand-built ceramic pieces, faux fur, and a variety of metal wire for the skeletal structure’s underneath. I’m tempted to attribute this amalgamation of materials to my piecemeal identity or the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (a very flattering parallel, I know). In reality, I’ve been taking inspiration from a puppet-maker and I am just following her advice because I am not the type of gay person that knows their way around a hardware store. I want my sculptures to seem soft and friendly. Humans waste so much time fearing change.

I believe everything a person does from the smallest action to the biggest statement says something about both them and the society in which they live. This concept is more clearly expressed within art. Even if the artist is not conscious of it, their art speaks loudly to who they are and where they are from. I see art as a uniquely individual experience, something with extreme intimacy yet at the same time completely disconnected. Art can be created with a strong sense of purpose, just for the joy of making, or both. Art doesn't need a purpose or goal to be created, and though it may have been created without intent, that does not mean it is without meaning. I tend to create in a more free-flowing sense; I don't make in-depth plans with every part considered before I start. I let the art speak for itself. This often means that I go into the process of making intuitively, just a feeling pulling at my hands and mind.

I am a highly tactile person and I understand the world through touch, and this quality is reflected in my work. My ceramic art is made in my hands and meant to be held and experienced through touch. It should feel like it fits in your hands or that your hands fit around it. I attempt to create this tactility in my paintings as well. My goal is to make images that look like you could reach in and pick it up, even if it is too abstract to know what ‘it’ is. Within all my work I try to incorporate a sense of movement, though often not explicitly. Even when stationary, my work is not static. The forms themselves force the eye to move around the compositions. This gives my work a sense of motion even when it is at rest. I am drawn towards more muted earthy colors as these facilitate the tactility and comfort I strive to create in my work. The touchable yet intriguing, the raw yet still thoughtful, and completed, is what interests me most in art. I don't want some perfect form that a machine can make. To me, that is boring and unnecessary. I want something that looks like it was handmade, something filed with my fingerprints and brush strokes and me.

Sometimes, I think it’s strange to call myself an “artist”... I know I’m an art major in my senior year of college—I know that I paint—I know that I’ve had my pieces critiqued and displayed in galleries … but I always feel like a large part of being an artist has to do with reaching out, and I tend to find myself spending time reaching inwards, to myself, in my work.

I’ve never really known who I am, as a person. I’ve spent most of my life being a collection of people, carefully crafted to be whatever anyone else wants at a particular time: to use, to love, to hurt. I don’t know what about me is real or tangible. I think that’s why I’m so obsessed with self-portraiture. I want my own perception of myself to become tangible. I want others to see me how I see myself. I want to know how others see me, too, but I don’t know if that’s something that will ever be possible. Someone told me I don’t paint myself pretty enough, once, and I think about that a lot. How did this distance between what others see and how I feel become so apparent?

Who am I when everyone’s watching? Who am I when I’m alone with myself? How do I know who I am? What makes me me?

Creating art, notably portraits, has given me a way to connect with others that feels empowering and authentic. I know that the way I see the world is fundamentally different. I want to know how I’m different from you, but I also want to know how we’re the same. I’ve always felt alone, even in a sea of people … but, maybe I want to make connections. I can be beautiful and monstrous, real and artificial, joyous and dreadful. Maybe, I can show you how I see myself, and we can make a connection. I’d like to show others a piece of my world. I think I reach out more than I originally thought.

I am a multimedia artist. I paint with acrylic, watercolor, and gouache; I work with ceramic clay and I love to make books and prints. The Latino and Mexican cultural and ethnic identity is an underlying theme to everything I make, based on my own experiences and memories I have of growing up in a Mexican household. Most of my current work is part of a big love letter to my parents as a way to thank them for all their hard work to provide for my siblings and me.

My use of bright colors reflects the livelihood of the Mexican culture I grew up in. Every family gathering was filled with laughter, loud music, non-stop talking, children running around, and always outside, if possible, with a piñata filled with all sorts of candy. Mexican folk art, with its organic lines resembling flowers and foliage, inspires and influences my work as well. This is most evident in my book, Recetas de Mama, and my pottery set, El Jardín de Familia. Both works include plant and floral designs in a similar manner; the added white in my ceramic pieces is inspired by the simple yet intricate designs found in Mexican folk art. The pottery also has Spanish words stamped on the forms that reflect the theme that each flower represents.

The natural world is another recurring theme in my work that has ties to Mexican culture. The theme of family is often intertwined in my work and I use forms found in nature to expand on that theme. Flowers are the most common imagery I use and they are often flowers that I remember from my childhood. I spent a lot of time outdoors at home and in both my parent’s hometowns in Mexico, which allowed me to disconnect from the digital world, and enjoy nature and every moment with my family.

The artwork I made for this showcase juxtaposes philosophy and art history. My poems creatively and critically reflect art history as a discipline. They are based on historical works of art that were reproduced on slides when the institution was known as College at St. Catherine. The poems explore concepts such as time, space, personal reflections, and how collective thought has changed over time. As artist Titus Kaphar has observed, there are many issues regarding power and access within the history of art, who has been allowed to hold space in the art world, and how those spaces and narratives may be amended. These poems explore how society views art, and how society's view of art changes as society changes.

There is a lot of philosophical thought that has gone into my artwork especially considering aesthetics and the concept of space and symbols. I chose to utilize cassettes in my installation because they hold a certain aesthetic that is linked to a past place and time. I also carefully considered which object I chose to use for my illustrations so there is one symbol associated with each poem. These symbols create their own narrative with questions and answers of their own. I have included chance dice that creates a playful and engaging space for the audience to relate to my artwork.

As a philosopher, I am drawn to ideas and concepts that are abstract and I express that by mixing realism with abstract images in my artwork. I intend for my art to be playful and uplifting while equally compelling and powerful. I want my artwork to inspire curiosity for the viewer, so they explore it in their own way. My images and words are only a starting point, the viewer has complete control over where my work takes them.

Art making, to me, is an intrinsic need. It brings my life meaning and is my favorite medium to employ in my attempts to dissect gender, sexuality, American culture and advertising while revealing the unconscious and the spiritual. I am interested in translating my thoughts, memories, dreams, and ideas into a visual language. I like to use cultural artifacts and ephemera from thrift stores and free piles to create the still-lifes I paint. There is a ghost of memory, identity, and meaning in the advertisements of old LIFE, Good Housekeeping and Vogue magazines that I am currently exploring in my collage work. I also aim to please myself visually when I paint, exploring decoration and aesthetic for its own sake. Ultimately, I make art for my own pleasure and purpose in an ongoing conversation I have with myself about life and the way I see it.