Growth is my part of my series of figurative and abstract paintings that trace my experience of regenerating the land for the past six years. The work speaks about the fluidity between soil, plants and animals. Nutrients migrate from one body to the next and operate within open systems. Boundaries of where one body ends and another begins get blurred. Work uses soil, beet watercolor, egg shell gouache and mesquite charcoal.
My work is created on the ground and built up, like a garden growing with every brush stroke. I start with the contour of a beet that has grown in my garden from December to April. I use soil, my chicken's eggshells and mesquite charcoal--all meaningful nutrients that move from the soil to plant and plant to soil. I move the pigments with rain water to embody the transitory flow from one subject to another. At a distance, the moon appears within the soil as an ancient counting system for harvesting root vegetables.
Used by my ancestors, sagebrush is hang to dry alongside the painting as a symbolic gesture of protection to the land from which I harvest. Sagebrush is a native plant to my South Texas Plains Ecoregion.
While at the Ragdale Residency, I was given permission to harvest radishes from their community garden to create inks. My work collaborates with the harvesting season in northern Illinois to speak about our interconnectedness with the land. I used purple radish ink, soil watercolor, and graphite on cotton paper.
Ecospiritualism grew from my ideation of gardens and the care needed to help each plant grow. I processed purple radishes into inks and their chemical process with alcohol created halos that reminded me of the divine relationship between the land steward and the land.
Ecospiritualism grew from my ideation of gardens and the care needed to help each plant grow. I processed purple radishes into inks and their chemical process with alcohol created halos that reminded me of the divine relationship between the land steward and the land.
Soil manifesting observes the soil from various sites around the artist’s material lab as part of the long-term project of regenerating the land with native plants from the Rio Grande Valley region. In this soil testing, the small terrariums mirror the landscape of South Texas with chemical reactions maintaining the work as ephemeral and in constant change. This artwork is a container of memory from the landscape as well a test on materials that will be used as natural pigments.
As part of my solo exhibition "rewriting the land, rewriting the soul", I address the long-term labor of caring for plants and the community it entails. The overalls embody the harsh landscape and the endurance of keeping plants healthy. At its side, a jar of seeds is placed as a counting system of the last harvest. Using journal entries, I collaborate with a local student farmer at UTRGV to take care of my crops while away to give importance to the communal care needed to sustain growth.
Cosesha documents the process during my University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Beginner Farmer Fellowship where I grew 10 different crops during the fall and spring season. With every fieldwork done on the land, my overalls accumulated markings from soil and plants. Even though the season brought challenges like a dangerous heatwave, a small amount of corn kernels were harvested and some seeds saved for the next growing season in the fall. Corn husks were kept to be used in another series of works.
Cosesha documents the process during my University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Beginner Farmer Fellowship where I grew 10 different crops during the fall and spring season. With every fieldwork done on the land, my overalls accumulated markings from soil and plants. Even though the season brought challenges like a dangerous heatwave, a small amount of corn kernels were harvested and some seeds saved for the next growing season in the fall. Corn husks were kept to be used in another series of works.
These two works are a collaging of small works of art, natural fiber brushes, paint testing sheets and containers with processed natural pigments. In my solo exhibition, "rewriting the land, rewriting the soul", I dedicated a small section of the exhibit to display the various materials and smaller artworks I produced while conducting research in my residencies and at Juana Simona, my material lab.
In the left image, a golden framed collage work called culebra [serpent] is placed next to soil, radish ink and a small watercolor landscape drawing. culebra is a series of collage works I made at the start of my research on the history of agriculture in the Rio Grande Valley. Specifically, the history of bracero workers, Mexican laborers legally hired to work the agriculture in the United States from 1930-1960. These laborers were dehumanized and often formed long lines to be inspected by immigration agents. In my collage, I reimagine this history to embody a snake wrapping on its own body with two heads of the Mexica goddess of water, Chalchiuhtlicue.
In the left image, a golden framed collage work called culebra [serpent] is placed next to soil, radish ink and a small watercolor landscape drawing. culebra is a series of collage works I made at the start of my research on the history of agriculture in the Rio Grande Valley. Specifically, the history of bracero workers, Mexican laborers legally hired to work the agriculture in the United States from 1930-1960. These laborers were dehumanized and often formed long lines to be inspected by immigration agents. In my collage, I reimagine this history to embody a snake wrapping on its own body with two heads of the Mexica goddess of water, Chalchiuhtlicue.
culebra [serpent], 2019
On the right, a testing pigment sheet is placed next to a brush made from my own hair, pigments gathered from the land and eco-prints done with leaves. In my last stage of processing natural pigments, I created several testing pigment sheets to understand their materiality. Various binders and pigments were used in combinations to test their durability and adhesion to the paper. Ragdale Resident funded this research the summer of 2025.
rewriting the land, rewriting the soul speaks about my journey of collaborating with native ecosystems to regenerate the soil and grow plants to be used as paints. With my video work, I capture movements in nature that helped me take the journey of reviving the soil. From the waves in the Rio Bravo/Rio Grande to chickens scratching the ground, these moments show the various bodily movements needed to revive the land.
