Aqui/Alla Catalog

ABOUT THE SHOW

Being Boricua is an intersection. It’s a woven identity that connects through time, land, ancestors, culture, and resistance. This exhibition gathers contemporary artists practicing in diverse disciplines, themes, and methods from around the nation and Puerto Rico.

A gathering by, CK Ledesma

LISTEN TO THE PLAYLIST FULL OF MUSIC BY PUERTO RICAN ARTISTS PLAYED AT THE OPENING CEREMONY

ARTIST:

ALYSSA ARROYO

I am a painter who explores the idea of the preservation of Puerto Rican culture. I am actively studying the land and forming work that revolves around pieces of Puerto Rico that I cannot carry with me. As someone who lives and works in the United States, separate from being a part of Puerto Rico, I rely heavily on research and generational knowledge. I explore culture through portraiture that replicates memory and work that studies ongoing sociopolitical issues. My work is an act of archiving different pieces of my culture that I feel are fleeting and disappearing through the processes of generational gentrification and colonization.

BIANCA OSMELIA BAUZÁ ARTIST:

Bianca Osmelia Bauzá is a multidisciplinary artist from Bayamón, Puerto Rico. Bauzá’s work explores themes of Caribbean identity and focuses on wearable art, fashion, and jewelry.

TANIA ESPINOZA BONILLA ARTIST:

My art practice has taken many shapes and forms throughout the years, exploring in diverse ways the themes of mental health, beauty, healing and now spiritual awakening/growth through fiber arts. My latest body of work explores the themes of vulnerability and exposure as I navigate new chapters and transitions in my life. As an entrepreneur, I have found that now, more than ever before, my career feels very public under the lens of social media and often find that there is little room for humanity and error. My latest works are an exploration of this experience and the many twists and turn life has taken me through in the last few years.

SARA CARTER ARTIST:

Sara Carter (b. 1996, Milwaukee,WI) is an interdisciplinary artist currently exploring black representation in regards to occupying space, lack of space, and the creation of space.While also zeroing in on tradition, subcultures, and navigation of life.

JOS É FELIX ROSA CASTRO ARTIST:

“Eso No Es De Dios” is an artistic manifestation of my complex relationship with religion specifically the Pentecostal church and queerness. I intend to create wearable textile pieces such as a praying veil with an intricate pattern of hand lettered messages and flowers. An altar will be created using items that have direct connection to my lived experience in the religion, its history, and familiar nuances. Receiving the holy spirit is a key component of the religion and I intend to incorporate mark making and body movements to attempt to document what happens during these spiritual spasms. The goal is to critique the social constructs that its members use and its background in radical community organizing.

JO COSME ARTIST:

For Welcome to Paradise, Cosme explores the contrast of how North Americans experience Borikén (Puerto Rico) as a tropical paradise compared to the reality of what Native Puerto Ricans (Boricuas) live daily. Known as “the world’s oldest colony,” Borikén (Puerto Rico) has served as a lab, tropical escape, land grab and tax haven, for the US and their people since 1898. Welcome to Paradise will be an immersive experience where folks walk into what appears to be a fun tourist campaign of, as commercial tourism companies call, “la Isla del Encanto,” (the island of enchantment) while exhibiting that we can barely live where you vacation.

GRACIELLA DELGADO ARTIST:

I am a multidisciplinary creative with immense pride for my roots. Born surrounded by various Latin influences right outside my Boricua home, I cling to my place in the diaspora and make work exploring identity and self in the predominantly white spaces I now navigate. Having grown up in a diverse neighborhood with the bulk of the white people being teachers and not peers, I’m suddenly expected to fill an educational and overly patient role in my day-to-day life in spaces where I’m reminded that I am an outsider.

My work’s material is based on what the work calls for, always tying styles and process approaches to African and Indigenous ways of making back in Puerto Rico, like traditional and experimental approaches to cultural mask-making and painting processes. With an interest in children’s literature, I tend to gravitate toward more illustrative work but I’ve explored sound-based work, performance art, poetry, sculpture, and various painting styles in recent years. My body of work will always circle back to reclamation and demanding space where I feel unwelcome.

ÁNGEL GUZMÁN RIVERA ARTIST:

This piece is about the past, present and future. Also about the things we wish for and speak out loud can come true. I created it so that it might motivate you to do the same.

REYNALDO HERNANDEZ ARTIST:

An artist, educator and leader, Reynaldo Hernandez helps communities express their ideas with images that teach and that put people in motion. He makes art an integral part of their daily lives of working people by painting murals in cities throughout Wisconsin. Reynaldo works as a muralist throughout the state. He creates murals which reflect the culture or community that requests his work. He studied in various art schools and he has illustrated for the Milwaukee Journal, courts and television stations.

ROZALIA HERNANDEZ-SINGH ARTIST:

My paintings are based in realism, surrealism and portraiture. I mostly paint women and people in deep thought like me. All different and reflecting different aspects of my identity. People see them selves or someone they know and love in my work. I have specific visions in my head and I search until I find a visual that is close to that expression.

CHUCHIN KULIAO ARTIST:

Kuliao is interested in the connection between the digital and political realms that create spaces of resistance against the colonial status of Puerto Rico and its repercussions. Cógelo Suave is a love letter to all the queer bodies loving themselves, each other, and creating loving environments when conditions are against us.

CK LEDESMA ARTIST:

Ck Ledesma is a transdisciplinary artist from San Juan, Puerto Rico, living in the diaspora in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Besides art practices, they are passionate about serving their community while building authentic relationships and the liberation of all BIPOC people. They co-founded Cosecha Creative Space, a community-focused “space” that centers connections, understanding, and building togetherness through creative engagement, mutual aid, and the arts: “We connect with our community(ies) to understand our collective/shared humanity and build togetherness—building together through art creation.”

Ledesma is a 2020 Mary L. Nohl Fellow, has served at the artist-in-residence for the Cesar Chavez Drive Business Improvement District in Milwaukee, the Mitchell Street branch of the Milwaukee Public Library, and Casa Candela in Cayey, Puerto Rico. Their work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at the Racine Art Museum and through the Museums Association of the Caribbean and, most notably, within the community.

Community Protest Signs

Community protest signs from a Milwaukee manifestation to oust the Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Roselló, 2019

LEARN MORE

AMANDA R. LUCIANO ARTIST:

I create to help myself process the world, which is often dark and depressing but I hope my creations bring joy and light to others as they did me. I am inspired most by my culture, ancestry, travel, and those loved ones I surround myself with most.

ARTIST:

JOAN MARIE LUCIANO VARGAS JOMALU

JoMaLu is the owner and creative behind JoMaLu LLC. She uses her art to embrace and affirm culture, ethnicity, creative engagement, spirituality, faith and hope. She is known in the community for creating a safe space for meaningful connections, building and togetherness. Her mission through her art is to embrace one’s cultures and traditions, actively and proactively keeping her diasporic roots alive, her testimony of praise and worship with joy in the midst of notso-joyful moments, and spread that embrace, joy and hope unto others. Her artistic disciplines are dance, performing art, visual art, painting, artisan jewelry, literature and acting.

MALDONADO ARTIST:

DEA

Born in 1986 in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. Began to study Digital Art in 10th grade at Central High School in Santurce. In 2004 while studying Drama at the University of Puerto Rico, lead a Theater Group by the name of Trampolín Teatrero with whom for the next three and a half years showcased original plays such as: El día que leí mi obituario, Cuidado: niños jugando and Circulitis. For the next few years practice art as a stage director, a writer, an actor, a graphic designer, a makeup fx artist and a drag performer. In 2021 completed a master’s degree in Digital Graphic Design and illustrated the book: Ahí viene la e; the first Puerto Rican book about inclusive language for children.

FRANCESCA MASON ARTIST:

Francesca Mason is a Puerto Rican American artist who grew up in the Midwest and makes work in the beautiful city of Milwaukee. She currently works as a freelance illustrator as well as a full-time professor teaching design. Francesca’s goal with her art making is to bring delight and connection to her audience. Often depicting things she loves (food, animals, plants, people) with emotional undertones that explore concepts of vulnerability, identity, and personal growth.

NATALIA MORYNS ARTIST:

Have you heard the quote, “An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times...I choose to reflect the times and situations in which I find myself.”

Nina Simone meant what she said and did what she said. And I understand that wholeheartedly. I aim to take steps in the path she has paved.

As a Brown Queer woman in this society, representation has come in waves. Growing up, the notion was I could have dreams and aspirations but logic had to lead. I could “draw” but I had to supplement that with the stereotypical jobs assigned to me by society.

I either cut hair, clean house, marry and clean house, or I could become a nurse. Nowhere in my community reflected the passions I felt when I took the solace of my brain matter and gave it life on paper. I had no idea I could paint. I had no idea I could paint and be happy. I had no idea I could become an artist and make painting a lifestyle. Not for the lack of wanting but for the lack of seeing people, who looked like me, do it first.

When I create, I do it for the Black and Brown girls watching; I do it for the little girl still alive and well in me. The idea that I can create and make others feel, see, and hear what I do- fills me with hope. It means that I can give others the room to feel and be seen. It means that my art has a place in this world. It means a Boricua girl from the south side of Milwaukee can put on for her island. If I continue to create with intention, I can show girls of color that if someone like them can do it, that they can do it. And for me that’s the greatest purpose.

MARGARITA NEGR Ó N PAG Á N ARTIST:

Margarita’s work explores themes of healing through the practice of making work related to her life experiences. Her work is abstract in nature mixed with representational imagery and indigenous (taino) influences.

MARILI PIZARRO LATORRE ARTIST:

Independent visual and performance artist from Bayamon, Puerto Rico. The focus of her work and practice merges space and body specificity with choreography and visual media. She describes her work as born from precariety and the redefinition of space. She also works as set designer, graphic artist, costume and makeup designer and photographer. She has presented as dancer and choreographer for Contemporary dance company Hincapié, La guareta and La trinchera. Also as an improvisation artist for Piso proyecto by artist Noemi Segarra. Pizarro has presented her work as an independent artist in Puerto Rico and internationally.

IRIA PRIETO ARTIST:

Iria Prieto’s paintings draw breath from improvisational dances developed through layering, removing, marking and stretching the materiality of the pictorial medium. As the layers accumulate creating memories, the piece is pushed in directions that work with and against itself simultaneously. The artist’s goal is to allow the piece to happen with abandonment and no expectations exploring existence, intuition and activations of Being.

MANUELA, LA DAMA ROJA ARTIST:

Tiene a su aval más de 5 libros publicados entre ellos: Transversándome, Transóptica, Bori-Haiku, 33 Mensajes Ocultos..., El Covid 19 y el Miedo a Morir. Además, cuenta con más de 80 obras de cuadros en acrílico sobre lienzos.

LISBETH ROSALES ARTIST:

My work explores themes of Puerto Rican folklore, culture and identity. The painting “Apostando en Las Picas” captures a whimsical and fleeting moment where a gambler is betting on the wood racing horses traditionally played during patron saint feasts or other events around Puerto Rico. I am interested in capturing everyday life to elevate the mundane and immortalize our existence and traditions.

WILLIE MEDINA SANTIAGO ARTIST:

In my photography I try to capture the essence, culture and people of the places I visit. I enjoy providing a limited view of the scene to the viewer so that the viewer can then imagine or question what is really happening in the photo.

GAMA VALLE ARTIST:

When I start working on a story I try to make sure that the perspective from which

I am writing is that of my main character. In most cases, I am writing from the point of view of a child or a young person. It is of great importance to me that my stories reflect the emotional intelligence of children, and how they interact with the world around them. In my stories I am interested in exploring a childhood that does not exist in a vacuum. A childhood that is surrounded by adults from various backgrounds. A childhood that deals with the complexities that that brings. Another element that is highly important to me is the representation of my Puerto RicanLatiné background in my stories. I strive to infuse my texts with subtle hints of Puertoricanness and Latinidad that could become clues for my collaborators and reader.

En Todo Momento Poem

En las mentes: profundidades albergue de innumerables posibilidades. Se piensan: rescates bíblicos o eventos míticos o gestas heroicas.

El tiempo se consume buscando maneras de hacerles realidad. La historia se robustece mientras se cuecen, solo por mencionar algunos ejemplos, una invasión de sirenas rabiosas, la aparición de arcángeles trompetistas, el incendio de la casa de las leyes. Etcétera.

A viva voz; en plena luz: gestas tiránicas y rescates capciosos y eventos infames.

VANESSA VIRUET ARTIST:

I feel like I am constantly straddling a border. Not quite Puerto Rican enough, American enough or Queer enough and my work is an attempt to understand those distinctions.

My current artistic practice is dedicated to material explorations and the language of flags. My research has also led me to consider the connotations of flags in noun (flag) and verb form (flagging). This has brought me to the fringes of masculine culture - gang banging and gay cruising.–where flags and flagging have a prominent role and where clothing has served as a subversive tool for expressing human relations.

In both gang and gay culture, the “feminine” patterned bandana fabric represents the act of identifying, or flagging, oneself. In gang culture, color is one of the most visible displays of allegiance to a particular gang. In the 1970s gay culture, bandanas were the basis for the “hanky code,” a color-coded system for communication of sexual interests and fetishes.

I use the bandana as an example of socioeconomic cloth, one I associate with my own upbringing. By flagging and introducing this icon into a gallery setting I seek to call attention to the vast space between the art world and various communities of so called outsiders. Exaggerating the scale is a symbolic gesture of intervention, a way of colonizing and claiming my space in the world as a queer, Latina from a barrio.

The value of art rests in its ability to communicate across barriers.