2022 24 x 30” (each) oil and acrylic on canvas
The four portraits (“Shemuel Wong” “Rosalind Paris” “Amelia Gracia” “Juan Nuñez Sr.” ) are based off of my grandparent’s passport photos, rendered in the colors of their country of origin (Guyana, Guyana, Puerto Rico, Spain respectively.) For immigrants, the passport photo represents a moment of transition from being ‘native’ (although none of my grandparents were ever truly native to their home countries) to being ‘foreign’, forever altering their lives and those of their descendants. Passport photos look similar to mug shots. The white background of their pictures is the only large swarth of color they all share. (For my two Guyanese grandparents I used different skin and hair colors from the flag to show how different their origins were even though they were both born brown in the same country.)
Immigrants, brown immigrants, Spanish-speaking immigrants are all similarly subordinated to white America. This is particularly seen in my paternal grandfather, Juan Nuñez Sr., from Spain, a European colonizing country, and yet fixed to a subordinate position because of the associations with his language. The colonizing framework doesn’t need to follow the logics of history and geography, it only recognizes itself and the other, superior and inferior.
2022 “Written in the Woodwork/ Gabe’s Second Birthday”36 x 36” oil on canvas
This painting is based off of a Polaroid of my Uncle Gabe’s second birthday in Guyana. It shows my grandmother with all of her children (my mother second from left.) In the wood of the table there are shells and a horse, a crucifix, Guyana, New Jersey, and a scary dog.
2022 “Smoking in the flower bush”, 16 x 24” oil on canvas
2022 40 x 30” oil & hair on canvas
“Dogs Still Fight in Eden” considers the duality and two-ness of mixed identity, as well as being a mutt of mutts, and sitting in these conflicting identities amidst a personal utopia. The braid of my hair (collected February 2021) is included to further embody my physical self into the painting.
2021 “Little painting For Spring” - 12”x12” oil on panel
