Date of Award

Spring 5-20-2021

Author's School

Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

Author Department/Program

Graduate School of Art

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

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.

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