Mitsy Avila-Ovalles
Eduardo Carrillo Prize in Painting 2007 Nominee
View Paintings by Mitsy Avilla-Ovalles
Artist Statement
Each piece is rooted in my reality, using metaphors of domesticity, identity, and violence to explore issues of gender, culture and class. In these works I engage in an internal multilayered dialogue, referencing my Mexican heritage and other subcultures, in this allowing for a strained syncretism to emerge. My pictures are a slice of my personal memory nostalgia, a reality that is not common to others but specific to those with a similar marginal experience.
Inspiration for my work comes from outside of normative qualities of art, borrowing aesthetics from the folk art of taco trucks, excessive feminine decoration,
Mexican lobby cards, graffiti, and food labels. All the while incarnating family members that have passed, honoring artists that I admire and harmonizing the disparity between Mexican and American pop culture. Through the process of investigating these cultural, social and autobiographical issues, I construct a visual vernacular all my own that allows me the option of disclosing only the basic concepts. The responsibility lies with you to create your own relationship and point of reference to each piece, for disclosing my narrative would be absolute.
View Paintings by Mitsy Avilla-Ovalles