Paintings > What Are the Conditions That Led Us to This?

Figure 7 from What Are the Conditions That Led Us to This?
chicken wire, newsprint, corn husks, and corn silk
60 x 30 x 24
2015
Figure 4 from What Are the Conditions That Led Us to This?
airbrush, spray paint, and nickel on cut panel
2015
Figure 3 from What Are the Conditions That Led Us to This?
acrylic and hair on cut panel
64 x 44
2015
Figure 2 from What Are the Conditions That Led Us to This?
digital print, acrylic, and mannequin arm on cut panel
63 x 40 x 16
2015
What Are the Conditions That Led Us to This?
mixed media installation
Install View
2015

What Are the Conditions That Led Us to This?
Rhode Island School of Design MFA Thesis Exhibit
Providence, RI
2015

In What Are the Conditions That Led Us to This?, I create a utopic space of community discourse that proposes new ways of talking about the complexity of identity. The figures in this multimedia tableau each have stories to tell, and perspectives to share with one another. Using fine arts media next to found object media, I consider hierarchies of materials. I use a wide range of media, from oil painting, to spray paint, to digital printouts to more crafty materials like chicken wire and corn husks.
My characters exist within a support system as they come together for what could be interpreted as an intimate community discussion. They are like-minded individuals. They exist in the present, they are distinctive, and they are flawed. They have different backgrounds but each have ties to one another. Each figure acts as a piece of me, or someone with whom I identity. In reflecting on part of my own identity, the characters at play in my installation have ties to Latinx cultures and speak of the reality of their struggles rather than their glorification.