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I create work about
the Latino experience through individual slices of life of the community,
family, and many other sectors of present-day society, both urban and
rural. It is the collective that is important; it is the primary focus
of all of my work. The people in my artwork do not have individual features;
they are faceless, yet each one is important in defining the group,
the community interacting and participating in its many rituals, social
settings, and group functions such as work, play, school, and family
celebrations. But more than that, each artwork is only part of the total
picture, the Latino Experience, not as an isolated phenomenon, but as
an active, integral part of American society. This artwork illustrates
the changing environment in the United States.
The demographics of this country are changing as the population of Latinos
increases. The border as we know it, is changing. The border is no longer
just at El Paso, Juarez, San Diego, or Tijuana. The border is here in
Denver; it is in Los Angeles, and in Phoenix [or here, in Iowa City].
The border either expands or is shot full of holes. Cultures and languages
mutually invade and affect one another. Daily, the United States receives
uncontainable migrations of human beings. This phenomenon is the result
of multiple factors that include unemployment, overpopulation, and especially,
the enormous disparity in North/South relations.
Despite the Internet, cell phones, and all the other communication gizmos
of today’s digital age, the seemingly antiquated technology of
the printed poster has lost little of its importance in transmitting
information. I take posters, flyers, forms, etc., that I find in my
neighborhood or in my travels, and incorporate them into my art. In
this body of artwork, I create environments of people and overlap icons
and symbols. I print over these, combined images and existing posters,
flyers, forms, etc., to show the integration of cultures, the changing
demographics and present-day history of Latinos in the United States.
In the postmodern ages, my visual language speaks to the issue of international
migration, focuses on shifting demographics, draws from the pop culture
by using existing community posters and seeks to present truth at a
more local, personal level.
I create my etchings with light sensitive polymer plates. I create a
piece of artwork, usually a pencil drawing. I also appropriate some
existing text usual in the manner of a poster, flyer, or form. I then
transfer the drawing and text to a transparent film through a photocopying
process. I then overlay it on a solarplate and expose the film and plate
together to an ultraviolet light source. The surface of the plate is
composed of a light sensitive polymer, which is also soluble in water.
Wherever ultraviolet light strikes the surface of the plate, the polymer
hardens, while the parts of the polymer blocked from the light by the
opaque lines and marks of the drawing, remain soluble. By washing the
plate gently with a soft brush in tap water, the soluble residue washes
away, leaving a plate with words, lines and grooves etched in the polymer.
I then expose the plate a second time so that the polymer that remains
will harden. The final step in creating the etching is inking and wiping
the plate as you would a traditional etching and then printing the image
on a press.
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