Throughout history the artist has been at the forefront of change and creating dialogue, Phoenix-based artist Martín Moreno said.
“That’s the right of the artist to point a finger when necessary but also one’s responsibility,” he said. “Art has been that catalyst to create change.”
Moreno is one of the painters whose work is displayed at the Tempe Center for the Arts’ “Mixing It Up: Building an Identity” art exhibit. The exhibit, which opened Saturday and runs until Jan. 28, focuses on Mexican-American artists’ influences, said Michelle Nicholas Dock, the Tempe gallery coordinator.
“Some of these topics are very happy, warm and friendly and other topics are a little more serious,” she said.
National identity, family and religion are some of the themes of the exhibit.
Some artists are struggling with the split between Mexico and the United States while others embrace it, Dock said.
“We are all struggling with who we are,” she said. “We’re all dealing with that day to day.”
Dock said she hopes the exhibit will bring new perspective to the topics that revolve around border issues.
“Art can say things that sometimes words can’t say,” Dock said.
Moreno, born in Michigan to migrant factory workers, said his work is politically and socially relevant.
“I try to use art as an instrument of education,” he said.
California-based artist Jerry Montoya’s first painting out of college is on display at the exhibit. The painting is titled “Soy Americano,” meaning “I am American.”
Montoya said his work celebrates his Mexican background and his American up-bringing.
“Being Mexican is just part of the whole tapestry that I am as a person,” he said. “It doesn’t make all of who I am but it’s (a) part of the whole.”
ASU Hispanic Research Center curator Melanie Magisos attended a reception for the exhibit on Saturday.
“I love seeing how the motifs thread between things,” she said.
Magisos said she is glad to be portraying Mexican-American culture in a positive light.
“People are making the mistake of not thinking that’s a positive part of Arizona,” she said. “It’s a hugely important part of our culture.”
Phoenix-based artist Moníca Aíssa Martínez also attended the reception. Martínez said her work focuses on physical anatomy and how the body works.
“I’m really investigating the body and the life that moves through it,” she said.
While Martínez was studying at New Mexico University she encountered retablos, a type Latin American devotional painting. This was a turning point in her career where the borderlands began to show influence in her work, she said.
“That was my first introduction where I could really hold something and study it,” Martínez said.
The exhibit gathers work from the ASU Hispanic Research Center, Tempe History Museum, The ASU Art Museum and works from ASU HRC Director Gary Keller and his family. On Oct. 13 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. some of the artists will give presentations about their work.
Reach the reporter at ryan.mccullough@asu.edu
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