Tag: Latine

Ictiomorfo.

Enamel, earthenware, limestone and plaster on wooden board.

60 x 25 x 4 in / 152.4 x 63.5 x 10.2 cm.

Made in 2024.

Ictiomorfo references ralladores of Tumaco-La Tolita origin from the
beginning of the common era. Ralladores are thought to have been
used to grind tubers like yuca in the process of making flour and in
some cases to descale fish. These objects which once were staples and critical for sustenance are enlarged and translated into a wall piece that formally and materially references colonial to modern-era building facades and truck decorations from the same region.

Part of a series of wall pieces that reference objects of Tumaco-La Tolita origin from the beginning of the common era. Namely, they cite ceramic ralladores which are the most commonly found objects from that culture after alcarrazas and cooking pots. Ralladores are thought to have been used to grind tubers like yuca in the process of making flour and in some cases to descale fish. These objects which once were staples and critical for sustenance are enlarged and translated into wall pieces that formally and materially reference colonial to modern-era building facades and truck decorations from the same region.

Go back

Inmersión.

Single-channel video, color, sound, 2:49.

Unedited video footage from a performance taken in 2022 using basic equipment in Media Luna, a rural district of Medellín where my family is from. The video blurs artifice, ritual, and documentation. Camera by Robert Hickerson.

Made in 2022.

Go back

In the words of Drew Zeiba “Monzón-Aguirre’s alternative history—which traverses the patriarchal and racialized distinctions of craft, decoration, and fine art—is likewise asserted in the Velo hamaca, or hammock veil. Made in collaboration with the artist’s uncle, Juan Manuel Ortiz, who for years has crocheted doilies for use in the home, the hanging textile manifests an intergenerational connection that allows for a transhistorical restructuring of gendered norms.”

Go back

Manilla (mariposas) is a 25-foot tall beaded bracelet woven with fique rope. The motif repeated throughout is an abstraction of a penis and its reflection that also represents a butterfly, as indicated by the title. The male organ is present here in a coded and feminized way. In this work, the enlarged scale of the bracelet and its coded pattern transform an everyday object into a monument to quiet resistance.

This piece also alludes to the artisanal and symbolic
practices of weaving as acts of resistance, identity, and
communal connection. Beads have traditionally been used in
the creation of objects with ritual, aesthetic, and social value
in various communities of the region, and are associated
with the domestic and the feminine. In this work, the
enlarged scale of the bracelet and its coded pattern
transform an everyday object into a monument to resistance
and human bonds.

Go back

Spanning 10 feet, Manilla (mariposas) is a vertical wall piece resembling a glass bead bracelet with a repeating, butterflying, penis motif.

Go back

Égida (mariquita).

Glazed earthenware.

14 x 13 x 6 in / 24 x 25 x 18 cm.

Made in 2024.

Go back

Truco presents a polished aluminum figure frozen in a suspended gesture—arms raised as if in invocation, surrender, or flight. The body is rendered with a mirror-like finish and a simplified, mask-like head that shifts the figure from portraiture toward an icon. Behind it, a semicircular mantle fans outward like wings, constructed from layered
press-on nails painted in gradients of orange and amber. The surface
evokes the microscopic scales of butterfly wings, translating
entomological texture into an ornamental, handmade skin. Developed
through scaled drawings and material experiments, the work draws
together bodily transformation, spectacle, and vulnerability, folding
references to performance, cinematic costuming, and devotional
imagery into a single hybrid form—at once radiant, armored, and
exposed.

Go back

Égida (mariquita).

Glazed earthenware.

14 x 13 x 6 in / 24 x 25 x 18 cm.

Made in 2023.

Go back

Desnudo [Nude].

Earthenware, nail polish.

8.8 x 9.5 x 9.8 in / 22.2 x 24.1 x 24.8 cm

Made in 2022.

Go back

Desnudo [Nude]

Earthenware, nail polish.

8.8 x 9.5 x 9.8 in / 22.2 x 24.1 x 24.8 cm

Made in 2022.

From anonymous Moche huacos to Herman Makkink´s Rocking Machine in Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 A Clockwork Orange, Desnudo [Nude] responds to different historical depictions of the penis. The artwork is also informed by Bell Hook’s observations on child education (The Will to Change, 2004) and Carol J. Clover’s analysis of the weapon-as-phallus in 70s and 80`s slasher films (Men, Women and Chainsaws, 1992). Both authors analyse, in very different ways, the effects of internalized rape culture and the portrayal of maleness and masculinity in mass media. The earthenware Desnudo [Nude] is coated with nail polish, incorporating ceramics and cosmetic material to arrive at a softened stylization.

Go back