Keossian, Alberto: Week 3 - Chicanx/Latinx Artist Wiki Presentation: Jackie Amezquita

 Jackie Amézquita is a Latin-American artist bon in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala and later migrated to the united states when she was 17. I was introduced to her work by sculpture professor, Jamison Carter, at Los Angeles Valley College. She is a current MFA candidate, in the New Genes Program, here at UCLA.

Jackie Amézquita crossed the border into the United States when she was 17 years old. Her goal was to find her mother who had left for the United States to look for work in an effort to cover hospital bills for Jackie’s baby brother. In doing so, Jackie walked two thousand six hundred miles from Quetzaltenango, Guatemala to Los Angeles, United States. Finding her mother was both great and odd as it felt like two strangers were meeting each other for the first time even though they were mother and daughter. Now in Los Angeles, Jackie took on several fast-food restaurant jobs in order to pay for her education. Because she lacked a social security card and driver’s license, attending and paying for school, let alone navigating Los Angeles, was extremely difficult but not impossible according to her. She later began working as a nanny for many families which sustained her enough to get through community college and now into an MFA program at UCLA.

Jackie Amézquita is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice is heavily influenced by her being an immigrant woman and her relationship to borders and the interaction with different cultures she engages with. Jackie engages in analyzing the intersections of race and economic differences and how these intersections have an affect on socio-political and socio-economic structures. Jackie incorporates performance, site-specificity, and material as a way of exploring visual languages surrounding topics or discussions she is interested in. Overall, there’s an interest in how the previously stated affect the relationship between body and landscape.

 

References

1.      Andrea Alonso, et al. “This Artist Walked from Tijuana to L.A. to Make a Powerful Statement Los Angeles Magazine.” Los Angeles Magazine, 8 June 2018, www.lamag.com/culturefiles/jackie-amezquita/.

2.      “Art Opens Doors to More Intimate Understandings.” We Stand with Our Community, walkerart.org/magazine/soundboard-journalism-art-immigration-jackie-amezquita.

Stories, Local. “Meet Jackie Amézquita of Binational Artist/ Activist in El Sereno - Voyage LA Magazine: LA City Guide.” Voyage LA Magazine | LA City Guide, 29 July 2019, voyagela.com/interview/meet-jackie-amezquita-binational-artist-activist/.