Artist In Residence
OPEN CALL 2024!
The Leonardo Museum and Artes de Mexico en Utah invite Utah’s Latino-Hispanic community to participate in the 2024 open call for our Artist-in-Residence program. The goal of this program is to encourage diverse artistic interpretation and to facilitate cross-cultural community-revitalization with a special focus on sharing the history, ideas, and lived experiences of our Latinx population with a wider audience.
Explore our Artist-in-Residence program, featuring a new Latino/Hispanic artist each month. In collaboration with Artes de Mexico en Utah, this exciting program brings art back to the community and encourages The Leonardo visitors to interact with local artists, ask questions, and observe several finished art pieces on display. The goal of this program is to encourage diverse artistic interpretation and to facilitate cross-cultural community-revitalization with a special focus on sharing the history, ideas, and lived experiences of our Latinx population with a wider audience.
Ven y conoce nuestro programa mensual de artista residente, que destaca la obra de artistas locales identificados como latino/hispano. Esta iniciativa en colaboración con la organización Artes de México en Utah, hace del arte, una participación colectiva e invita a los visitantes del museo The Leonardo a interactuar con artistas locales, conocer su obra en marcha y exposición. El objetivo de este programa es crear un espacio de interpretación artística que represente y reconozca la diversidad multicultural latinoamericana con el fin de compartir ideas y experiencias a través del arte, que permitan ampliar el conocimiento cultural.
This program is included with General Admission or membership to The Leonardo.
Artist In Residence Monthly Schedule
Stop by the Art Studio every Saturday and Sunday to meet the month’s featured artist in residence. Learn more about each artist below.
Mi nombre es Ramón Ramos y soy de Baja California, México. Y Soy diseñador gráfico y artista plástico con experiencia en teatro canto y baile, unas de mis pasiones es la cultura y el arte oaxaqueño ya que se identifica como descendiente directo de una mujer Tacuate, del pueblo de Santa María Zacatepec, Oaxaca, y un hombre Putleco, del pueblo de Putla de Guerrero Oaxaca.
Su arte de hacer monos de calenda, títeres gigantes de papel maché, representan el icónico carnaval de Putleco que se celebra comúnmente en la Sierra Sur de Oaxaca.
Mono de calenda es un títere gigante utilizado en desfiles y celebraciones callejeras. Estos son controlados desde adentro por un bailarín, pueden ser de diferentes tamaños y suelen estar vestidos con ropa tradicional que representa la diversidad de la cultura oaxaqueña. Estos están hechos de un marco de metal de liguero, forrado con una base de cartón y capas de papel encolado secado al sol. Se pinta a mano la cara de un personaje gigante que representa a alguien famoso o conocido en la comunidad. Luego, los monos de calenda bailan con sus brazos balanceándose en todas direcciones invitando a todos a venir y bailar.
Los monos de calenda son una parte importante de la cultura y tradición oaxaqueña, llevados por muchas comunidades en Oaxaca, México y ahora en Utah.
Como artista local de Utah, Ramón Ramos está comprometido a demostrar la diversidad del arte y la cultura oaxaqueña, para inspirar a las nuevas generaciones que se sientan orgullosas de sus raíces mexicanas y oaxaqueñas.
Instagram: @reimon0292
I explore the intersections between my Mexican/American heritage, my status as an undocumented immigrant, and my relationships in community and land through the medium of visual art. I explore the long-lasting impacts of the Spanish colonization of Mexico in my latest series of la Malinche. I am personifying the Latin American cultural identity to deconstruct the complex and sometimes paradoxical nature of culture after erasure. I enjoy connecting visual elements from remaining artifacts of Pre-Colombian Indigenous South American cultures to reinterpret contemporary western art/cultural standards. The Popol Vuh and Latin American codexes heavily influence the subject, surface treatment, and pattern applications through my works and give me material to recontextualize classical art themes of power and authority. This series allows me to expand on my identity and walk-through internal conflicts as an immigrant in the Utah landscape. I hope to add to the discussion of sharing challenges concerning coming to terms with intersectional cultural identities as an immigrant with a yearning for a lost connection to heritage in a western-centric country. My artwork integrates multi-media portraiture framed by naturalistic environments that create a story with the South American themes of magic realism in the forms of pre-Raphaelite historical paintings with indigenous utilitarian textiles and patterns.
Instagram: pabloc_art_
Inez Garcia’s current work draws upon her critique of race and viewership from both western exoticism and as an outsider within her own community. She creates from her experience as a 3rd generation Mexican immigrant and annexation from her paternal Egyptian culture. She grew up in Rose Park, a primarily hispanic community, not speaking Spanish and many of the cultural traditions were not passed on in her family due to the timing of her grandparents immigration from Mexico. Growing up, Inez learned about her Mexican culture as an outsider through friendships she formed in her community. She attended celebrations and became exposed to the culture through her best friend. She eventually learned the Spanish language in college.
Similarly, she was annexed from her Egyptian heritage. With her parents’ separation at three years old Inez and the paternal side residing in Egypt, she wasn’t exposed to the Egyptian language and culture through typical familial means. But rather her exposure came through watching the history channel and happenchance events.
This has created her deconstructed identity of living in a Mexican-Egyptian body while having the same racial knowledge of those cultures as a typical white American, while at the same time, experiencing the racism that comes as a person of color.
Instagram: @inezgarciaart
Originally from Mexico, I am an artist, activist, and therapist in training based in Salt Lake City since 2020. Thanks to a previous degree in Digital Graphic Design, I have pushed my digital skills through interactive and realistic artworks that explore the contemporary challenges for social justice. My projects shine an empathetic light towards difficult social issues in hopes to provide positive, educational art experiences for my subjects and audience.
My continuous education and training as a future clinical social worker has not only helped me to grow as a professional, but also as a person. Meaning that these factors have proven to be crucial for my own self-advocacy and self-realization, by allowing me to recognize myself as a resilient individual. Not surprisingly, in my future practice I seek to incorporate art as a therapeutic tool for introspection, emotional expression, to process the past, to reinvent their future, and to create community in a welcoming environment.
Instagram: @lilyagar
Pintor y escultor mexicano con más de 20 años de experiencia, con exposiciones tanto en México como en los Estados Unidos, mi estilo es figurativo.
Instagram: @rosmon.art
The fatigue of resisting the oppression of colonization and the ability to find reasons for joy despite that fatigue are common themes within the Puerto Rican experience. These themes inform the seemingly goofy smile and tired eyes of my Vejigante masks. Hand-sculpted with natural clay, polymer, or paper, my masks hold the memories of the time I lived in Puerto Rico as decorations. I draw from my diasporic nostalgia, as I paint over the masks’ expressions with illustrations of things I love about the island, or I carefully select colors that are tied to my personal stories.
Instagram: @alliarocho
Artes de Mexico en Utah
This program is brought to The Leonardo in conjunction with our valued partner, Artes de Mexico en Utah. It is the mission of Artes de Mexico to build communities and a sense of belonging that is united by cultural connections through the appreciation and creation of art. Art in all its expressions is the pathway to reflect on our past and present to find commonalities among one another.
The Leonardo is proud to partner with Artes de Mexcio en Utah to provide exciting and educational cultural programing for all of our members and guests.
Salt Lake City Art Council
This program is sponsored by the Salt Lake City Arts Council.
