Week 7 Ana Serrano

Ana Serrano is a first generation Mexican-American visual artist born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She attended Art Center College of Design and went on to tour her work nationally and internationally since graduating in 2008. Her work references the architecture of space and its influence on the environment by making entire dioramas entirely of colorful cardboard and paper. Her work has strong ties to Latino neighborhoods across the US and she pulls from her Los Angeles upbringing to create works that investigate the socio-cultural and spatial elements of urban life. The contrast between man made and natural elements coalesce in her works in a playful tension. The simplicity and detail of her work is refreshingly strong. In this work, buildings are compiled on top of each other, to represent the close contact and layering involved in city life. Her work borders on domesticana by using household items like cardboard and paper to construct entire worlds. The fragility of the colorful paper on cardboard, its inherent flimsiness is contrasted by a solidity of the structure she creates. The thought, planning and time taken to execute these cardboard structures must be all consuming. The complexity she creates using such simple materials is astounding. Now living in Portland, Oregon, I wonder how the role of migration plays into her work. Living away from her original home of Los Angeles, I wonder if these structures are also now a portable memory of home: that even though these sculptures can symbolize all barrios across the US, that her creations also strengthen her connection to home and space.