An artist that was appealing from this week's presentations was Yreina Cervantez. The piece that I found was the most striking and powerful from those presented, and those that I've seen, is La Ofrenda. This is a mural in the First Avenue Bridge in Los Angeles painted in 1989 that has Dolores Huerta, the co-founder of the UFWA. This mainly appealed to me, because most commonly when representing the farm workers union, Dolores is often pushed aside and Cesar Chavez is given all the credit, yet this painting gives all of the attention to Huerta. As I researched Cervantez, I read that because she had minimal exposure to Latinas in popular culture growing up, she made Latinas and her self-portraits an important part of her work. What was intriguing to me about this piece was the fact that it had been tagged over, and was easily fixed, because all that was removed was the top layer that protected it from being tagged. However, in the time it took to re-coat the mural, it was tagged again, and local youth helped repaint it. This artist, as I discovered, paints a lot to help viewers see that Chicanxs are living in their ancestral homelands, and aren't "immigrants."
Hi Paola,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you that Cervantez's artwork is very intriguing and eye-catching. Like you, I loved the idea of how she empowers women (and herself), by making them the center of the painting. Not only that, but it was also very sad to know that people had the audacity to try to take this image off. It's also very disappointing because how can someone do something like that? When the only thing that it embraces is strength to the community itself. I'm glad that this mural was able to be repaired.
Hi Paola!
ReplyDeleteI am really happy to see you reflected on the empowering of women through Cervantez's artwork. What stood out to me about her was that she wanted to break boundaries and show women in art as strong. I chose her as my artist because she does so much for women and strengthening the community. I am very thankful to see you as well as other women appreciate her art and awareness.