Date of Award
Spring 5-20-2021
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Visual Art
Degree Type
Thesis
Abstract
Through collage, assemblage, and object making, I fit unlikely fragments that I call manchitas—stains—together. In my paintings and mixed media assemblages I incorporate references to Spanglish as un acto of making. To me, it’s like the visual work that I make: thinking in one language and speaking another, words start with English but end in Spanish. They sound like English but are Spanish or vice versa. The words look misspelled but are used in everyday conversation. Spanglish is idiosyncratic and is what I build my practice on. I collect materials around me, some I find and some I make. Some belong to me and some from others. To me, this is what being bilingual means. This text comprises letters to written to the writer Salvador Tio, artists Robert Rauschenberg, Amy Sillman, and Lisa Bulawsky, a non-imaginary friend, and my mother. The letters describe my investigation of Spanglish and my position around contemporary issues and concerns of cultural and linguistic hybridity—written in English, Spanish, or neither espanol ni ingles, but both.
Language
English (en)
Program Director
Lisa Bulawsky
Program Director's Department
Graduate School of Art
Thesis Advisor
Monika Weiss
Studio/Primary Advisor
Lisa Bulawsky
Studio/Primary Advisor
Michael Byron
Committee Member
Jack Risley
Committee Member
Jack Risley
Recommended Citation
Gonzalez, Adrian, "Pero...Maybe" (2021). Graduate School of Art Theses. ETD 150. https://doi.org/10.7936/18pk-tj79.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/samfox_art_etds/150
Included in
Art and Design Commons, Fine Arts Commons, Latin American History Commons, Latina/o Studies Commons, Spanish Linguistics Commons, Spanish Literature Commons
Artist's Statement
I create large-scale translucent paintings and mixed media assemblages by collaging unlikely fragments that I call manchitas—stains—incorporating references to Spanglish as un acto of making. Fragments of drawings, prints, internet images, and objects from the streets and studio. I use a variety of haptic but rational strategies and materials, slicing pictures or cutting down wood to then screw and glue them back together as a form and sense of bilingualism. As an artist, collector, Spanglish speaker, and wonky grid lover, I have a casual process with implied logic that stems from his multipartite viewpoint of landscapes and physical spaces—a reflection that is in the intermediate stages of representation and abstraction and in-between languages.