Self Portraits (2018 -2019)

Through this series of self portraits I acknowledge the complexities and variations of in-between identities, the ni de aqui de alla. The images act as new constructions of identity - complex, curious, optimistic, and varied. As such, they hope to be culture-fixers, the kind of images that celebrate and bring pride to those who have always questioned where they are supposed to exist socially and culturally.

With multi-faceted characters and a healthy dose of audacious optimism, these portraits engage in the idea of “New Brown America,” a place centering young brown persons, often first-generation, in the definition of American identity.

Effy’s Arizona (Mine Mine Mine Ese Mia) /

Tired of Ur BS (My Mama’s got my Back) /

Channeling Mama Inti, Soledad, Sun Goddess Of Southwest Ohio, And All Of Her Bountiful Harvest Blessings /

Kola Queen and Don’t You Forget It (Producto Diaspora) /

Si, Te Escucho Pero Like What Did You Say Again I Don’t Know What That Means /

Invoking The Wisdom Of Teresita, Chismosa, Pendeja, Y Always Hopelessly In Love /

Satin Inkjet Archival prints, 24 x 36 in.

more text (thesis excerpt):

In the years preparing for Dreaming of Oasis, I have explored many forms of portraiture. Always led by the need to reform representation and play in politics of image, I found that self-portraiture allowed for the re-envisioning of my autobiographical identity in a way that could be bold, between worlds, and in my own language. However, after satisfying my curiosity in this form I found that I was longing for something beyond what exists in this real-world plane, a visual representation of what is beyond the here and now, or más allá.

Writing and reading texts not only on the politics of representation but also the politics of hope and rest in the margins became central to this project. Rebecca Solnit’s Hope in the Dark shed light on core ideas now present in Dreaming of Oasis; including how paradise (perfection) must always be on the horizon, just out of reach. It must become a moving target lest we become passive to its victory. (80) Even more foundational to the research behind this project were the ideologies present in much of bell hooks’ writing. Specifically, I built a perspective born out of the margins, margins which empower my neither-here-nor-there position to claim a third, resistant space in which to speak and make possible a world not yet seen.