Chicana Printmakers

The article discussed the displaced value of the Chicana printmaker in terms of where such group belongs among fine arts, while also celebrating those who have been instrumental in affecting change and energy in the movement since the 1960s. I greatly admire all of the printmakers discussed in the article for their ability to galvanize social progressive thought. They are compelling.

What I find most fascinating between the printmakers' work and white, traditional, institutional art, is the dialogue that the two practices share. Diane Gamboa's silk screen print, Altered State, questions "what is femininity?" It portrays the female gaze and says to the viewer "women can too objectify". In her prints, it seems to me, Diane employs techniques used by many of the impressionists during the late 1800s and early 1900s. For instance, like Matisse and Cezanne, she consciously avoids accurate linear perspective. This makes me wonder why does the art world have to be so sectional? Why is activist art treated differently from "high art" when all art is confrontational to some degree? Is Art racist?