Headlands Center for the Arts

Artist Statement

My practice is interdisciplinary, and includes sculpture, photography, video projections, and performance. I approach medium and materials according to their formal and conceptual significance. Currently, it is crucial to me that the materials I select be ones that trigger memories of my past. The acts of making, cutting, twisting, tearing, wrapping, heating, burning, and/or banging provide me with a sense of healing and acceptance: These labor intensive acts that could be associated with violence or even torture have allowed many of those brief past memories, which had faded away, to awaken.

While at Headlands

For many years I’ve asked myself, “WHERE IS ‘HOME’? WHAT BETTER LIFE? WHERE DO I BELONG.” Home has always seemed far away from me. In Mexico, my home is the US, and in the US, Mexico is my home. While at Headlands, I will continue creating works that are about my past, my childhood memories, and storytelling. I am using memory as a point of reference to my practice. The narrative voice of my stories is of that immigrant child who can’t let go of his past. Making work about these experiences, whether gratifying or unpleasant, empowers me to echo the forgotten stories of many.