Argueza, Leigh Anne (Wk. 10- Artist Presentation)

 

    Out of all the presentations that were given last Tuesday during our lecture, I was incredibly impressed by the painter Emilia Cruz’s work. I was touched by Emilia Cruz’s support system and how her family had encouraged her to pursue a degree in art application. I believe that there is an overwhelming feeling of pressure attached to choosing a career that’s often seen as non-traditional or something that doesn’t necessarily guarantee a student’s success in the field. I think that Emilia Cruz’s support system heavily influenced her success in the art world and I'm excited to follow her future endeavors and pieces that she will produce. The portrait of her sister titled “Am I too dark?” depicts her sibling on a bedroom environment surrounded by Caucasian Barbie dolls as she starts down at her own hair, comparing it to the blond synthetic wigs of her playthings. I know from firsthand experience how disheartening it is to see these overproduced images of an idealized beauty standard is applied to the only accessible items that manufacturers sold. They were enablers at a young age to imprint Westernized beauty standards as the superior idealized image- the only image that warranted mass production. Thankfully, artists like Emilia Cruz are challenging these harmful images by bringing the concept into a medium and composition, e.g. portraiture, that was primarily for wealthier individuals in society. The accessibility to these images and the relatability reacts together to preform something genuine for their audience. By inserting her own sibling into this painting, I believe that Emilia Cruz is reminding her audience that it’s an ongoing racial image that we have to continue amending and it starts in our inner circles in environments we can control. Something as small as being mindful about finding playthings that support beauty images of Chicanx/BIPOC women is a beginning of a solution. 

Argueza, Leigh Anne (Wk. 9-Artist Presentation)

    The second and third wave of presentations last week were excellent, as to be expected. I was particularly infatuated by the presentation on the muralist Irene Perez. Out of the three pieces that were displayed, I was excited to see the MaestraPeace Mural from San Fransisco’s Women’s Center Building exhibited on 18th Street in the Mission District. I think the complexity and the depth of the MaestraPeace mural was executed beautifully with its vibrant color scheme and natural grandeur of the physical architecture. The collective of muralists who were part of the project that included Irene Perez contributed a piece of work that was truly unique and symbolic of the contributions of women globally and through a historical chronicle.
    It is a piece I am familiar with as I spent my time in the Mission District one afternoon, and it is mural that has left an enormous impression that deserves far more recognition than passing pedestrians. However, I do believe that the mural has been expanded upon over the years, which just adds to its overwhelming impact on the audience. I look forward to the day I get to see it in person to experience the newest additions to the exterior of the building. I think that Irene Perez’s contribution to the muralists in the United States and internationally provides a sense of cultural pride in her Mexican/Chicanx heritage as an artist but also a woman who celebrates her uniqueness and diversity in such a positive, vivid way. It really is an astonishing mural, and I recommend anyone who is interested in her work or just artwork in general who is in the city to walk around the building and take it in. The pictures of the MaestraPeace Mural pale in comparison to the real experience. 

Argueza, Leigh Anne (Wk. 8-Artist Presentation)

    The first presenters for our last session were excellent. I had a nice time learning about my fellow classmate’s artists from their perspective, but I was most immediately impressed by Armando Perez’s presentation on Los Angeles native public artist Brenda Barrios. I resonated mainly with her use of vivid palette choices that were tied with her Mexican heritage that she recollected from childhood memories. I think that her mission, or rather activism, to create awareness about her culture’s lives are intricately woven in each of her pieces. They have made a powerful impact on these issues and highlighted the readily prevalent injustices that need to be addressed and remedied within not only the Chicanx communities, but global ones. The image that resonated deepest with me was of her piece captioned “Essential workers pay them hazard pay” which had farm workers littered across a field with fires behind them in the background.

    It reminded me of last year’s fires in and around Monterey County, which is a short drive away from Salinas farms that were essentially still in production while the fires were still active. I remember my older sister, who at the time was reporting on them, would come home exhausted from being out in the active burn areas. Each time she had to be out in the field, I worried for her safety, the damage to her health, and the instances where her life would be at risk because she was reporting so close to these areas. I also thought about how inhumane it was for these farms that were expected to yield the same number of products within these conditions without any regard for their own safety. Every Sunday when we would brave the local farmer’s markets in town during last year’s fire season, I would hear the apologies that were being doled out for the quality of the vegetables from the vendors. It just reminded me to be humbler, recognize the privileges I held, and also to keep supporting these vendors without large expectations because over the years they became more than friendly encounters—they were always essential people to the fabric of our town. 

Argueza, Leigh Anne (Wk. 7- Claudia Zapata)

    After reading this week’s essay titled “Chicanx Graphics in the Digital Age” by Claudia Zapata, I found myself thinking about how impactful digital mediums could be in terms of artistic activism. It also reminded me how accessibility to information by using these types of mediums is necessary for community inclusivity, but also the ease of replication or distribution of these artistic images are formed. I was mostly drawn to the artist Oree Originol’s social justice project titled Justice for Our Lives where he responded to the atrocities of state-sanctioned violence against the Black community and stood in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. His ongoing project consists of a series of black-and-white digital singular portraits with each of the victim’s likeness, where he worked personally with the victim’s families to ensure each portrait’s authenticity was conveyed. Each of these simplistic portraits is available for download on Originol’s website where it’s accessible to be printed out and circulated within the communities.

    I think that Originol’s ingenuity for his pieces in Justice for Our Lives originates form identifying first and foremost that not all households have accessibility to the latest and greatest computers or software to print a colorful, intricate portraits of each victim. Instead, he uses his portrait’s simplistic austerity with black-and-white as a method to strip each portrait down to the most basic version that can be rendered without convoluting or rather, misrepresenting them. In addition, his portraits are easier to duplicate in mass numbers without hindering the communities that use them to aid their causes. I found that Originol’s portraits were most impactful because they not only were created in response to a continuous racial, cultural, and political resistance that has been a long and arduous conflict, but also because it mobilizes efficiently without disrespecting the faces that are being duplicated by Originol’s insistence to include each victim’s family in the process of creation. 

Argueza, Leigh Anne (Wk. 6- Xandra Ibarra)

 

    Xandra Ibarra, or better known as her alias La Chica Boom, is an Oakland performance artist who uses videos and sculpture mediums to explore racial, gendered and queer subject matter. After reviewing her collections, I stumbled across the artist’s series titled She’s on the Rag c. 2013-2020 where Ibarra collected her menstrual emissions and used them as the main medium in multiple Rorschach compositional pieces. Ibarra included a complementary psychodynamic analysis video with the series where she narrates what these images may evoke from the reader. Ibarra’s She’s on the Rag series reminded me of another artist, Frédéric Fontenoy’s photographic series titled Alkama which was created using unconventional mediums such as blood and milk. I am always fond of artists who use unconventional mediums, mainly blood or bodily fluids in their work because they imbue the piece with something natural, raw, and it cures different than traditional materials.

    I think that it’s also important to note that menstruation is generally a forbidden theme, but it desperately needs to be normalized. It’s a natural function of female bodies that sheds uterine lining every month- it's nothing to be ashamed of or ridiculed for its occurrences. But unfortunately, it is still a topic that makes people uncomfortable, which is why I think when Ibarra uses it as her main medium in her series, She’s on the Rag, it makes the audience view menses in a different context that is far removed from that narrow perspective. I think that Ibarra confronts the topic of menses and masturbation by associating with flight or flying. I translated this and interpreted her psychodynamic video as the action of menses and masturbation leading to euphoria, or an elated release where she laid pieces of herself out for the audience to bear witness. Similar to a chemical released during menses and masturbation, like hormonal estrogen, progestogen, and testosterone- again, a completely natural occurrence. 

Question for the artist: 

1. How many pieces do you often work on at the same time?

2. Particularly for the series that work with unconventional mediums, do you find it easier to improvise your performances or do you organize your pieces beforehand? 

Argueza, Leigh Anne (Wk. 5- Wikipedia Article Draft)

Amy Díaz-Infante (1982-present) is an active Mexican visual artist and educator currently based in San Fransisco, California with a focus on printmaking, drawing, and design.  

 

Biography (or Early Life and Education)-

Amy Díaz-Infante was born (year TBD) in Salinas, CA. In 2003, Díaz earned a Bachelor of Art degree from Yale University with a concentration in printmaking. In 2009, she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Rhode Island School of Design with a concentration in printmaking and graduated with honors. During the same year, she received a Collegiate Teaching Certificate from Brown University’s Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching & Learning. From 2015-present, she became a contributing art editor for the Kweli Journal, an online literary journal for writers of color founded in New York, New York. In 2017-present, she became a full-time faculty member in Printmaking, Drawing, and Design at the City College of San Fransisco. 

Art (or Notable Works or Selected Works, Exhibitions, Projects, Collections)- 

• Recent exhibition- La Frontera Nos Cruzó a Nosotros (415) Public Gallery, [x]Space San Fransisco, CA 2019. 
• Exhibition- Unidad Académia de Estudios Regionales, Jiquilan, Michoacán, Mexico 2019. 
• Catalog- UNAM Centro Cultural Morelia, Morelia, Michoacán, México 2018. 
• Exhibition- Who Gets to Call it Chicano Art?, Axis Gallery, Sacramento, CA 2018. 
• Exhibition- Hablamos Juntos, Pajaro Valley Arts & Museo Eduardo Carrillo, Watsonville, CA 2018. 
• Exhibition- Process in Progress, Monterey Musem of Art, Monterey, CA 2018. 
• Exhibition- Undergraduate Thesis Show, Yale University, New Haven, CT 2003. 
• Exhibition- Sudler Fund Exhibit, Timothy Dwight College at Yale University, New Haven, CT 2003. 
• (TBD- Díaz-Infante has more exhibitions, projects, collections, collaborations etc. since her years as an undergraduate student) 
  

 

References-

• Díaz-Infante, Amy. “CV-Amy Díaz-Infante.” Amy Díaz-Infante, (TBC). https://www.amydiaz-infante.com/pagecv.  
• “The Printed World: the Personal and the Political.” Women’s Studio Workshop, Women’s Studio Workshop, 30 April 2019, https://wsworkshop.org/event/the-printed-world-the-personal-and-the-political-amy-diaz-infante/. 
• Ryce, Walter. “Angelica Muro talks equity, ethnicity, career and culture.” California State University Monterey Bay News, 13 April 2021, https://csumb.edu/news/news-listing/angelica-muro-talks-equity-ethnicity-career-and-culture/. 
• ^ [citation to reliable source, print or e, goes here] (TBD) 

• 
  

Further reading-

Publications- 

• “Interview with Johnny Adimando,” We Have a Lot to Say, John Pyper, ed. (Cambridge, MA: Paige at Harvard Book Store, 2016) 
• “On Silk and Ink,” Julian Lim, Xpress Magazine, Spring 2014. San Fransisco, CA 
• “100 Ańos, 100 Artistas,” Grafilia, No. 74 November. Guadalajara, Jalisco. 
• “Hablamos Jiuntos” middle school and high school curriculum guide, 2019. Santa Cruz, CA. (TBD) 
  

External links-

• Artist’s personal website- http://www.amydiaz-infante.com/ 
• Artist’s LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/amydiazinfante 
• Kweli Journal LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/company/kweli-journal
• “Sesnon Speak Up: ‘Chicanx’ Visual Aesthetics.” Art Department, University of Santa Cruz, 2021 http://art.ucsc.edu/senson/sesnon-speak-feminism-chicanx-and-latinx-art/. 
• “Two Journeys: A Conversation with Amy Díaz-Infante and Angelica Muro: Monterey Museum of Art.” Monterey Museum of Art, 16 March 2021, http://montereyart.org/event/two-journeys-a-conversation-with-amy-diaz-infante-and-angelica-muro/.