BIO
I was born in Guadalajara Mexico in 1971. My mother is American and my father is Mexican. My parents split when I was very young, so I came to Tucson and grew up here as an only child. I had a ton of time to myself and found that I loved to draw. Creating an image on paper was very exciting to me. In college, I initially thought I would pursue a degree in graphic design to have a practical career but I took one painting class and was hooked! I couldn’t believe you could make this fluid substance into an image.
Around this time, I became obsessed with reconnecting with my family in Mexico and started painting about it. Painting was the perfect way to express myself with whatever was going on in my life. It was pure magic and I have continued this practice ever since.
I am continually learning and it is my greatest passion. It has gotten me through life’s ups and downs. As long as I’m painting or creating images, I know I am serving my life purpose.
Eventually, I did also become a graphic designer and I now face paint as well. I currently live in Tucson, AZ with my teenage son and two small dogs.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I use bold graphics and vibrant colors in my paintings, heavily influenced by Mexican and American painters, Frida Kahlo and Alice Neel. I paint as as a way to reflect on my life and the situation I was born into. As the daughter of a white, American mother and Mexican father, I experienced the results of the Mexican ‘machismo' culture firsthand from being abandoned by my father as a child for being born a girl. This drove me into an ongoing investigation of the effects of machismo attitudes and how they have shaped my life, which I explore in my paintings. Through meditation and painting, I am finding the answers to why I have lived a life of searching for love and worth from male validation. I do portraiture working from photographs, adding conceptual elements like intestinal, organic shapes and natural elements that explore themes of struggling for self-worth and the search for security.
I also create abstract paintings that explore the subconscious and my connection to spirit. The pictorial quality of the work expresses my version of the past, present and future of my spirit. This is portrayed energetically and sometimes chaotically with fluid, balanced, rounded lines, beautiful rhythmic color, and psychedelic qualities created by layering shapes and subtracting colors. My process allows me to get to the root of my ideas about who I am by turning visuals that come to me in meditation into reality on the canvas.