My work involves in exploring my personal experiences of growing up in a Mexican culture while living in the United States mainly in Tyler, Texas and its influence on my life. I started to see the big picture from how my parents’ generation, others around their age who aren’t immigrants or in general in the Mexican community of things that are normalized with no thought to it. Which led me to investigate more into the reasoning of my feelings of the struggle of navigating two cultures, having an identity crisis and the way I grew up thinking about myself inside and out.
Many of my ideas come from the silent personal struggles and disorientation of my culture of being raised as a first-generation American citizen by immigrants. Being told “don’t forget your roots but blend in with the white society, don’t cause attention to yourself “. Also asking the reason behind our traditions and all I get is little information or no information, only “just because it’s always been this way”.
I use cropped or close-up compositions that capture the viewer’s focus on a specific scene, and I include hands “in action” to help me share a story and show expression. By doing narrative imagery, variety in composition and sizes of canvases that work best for each. I decided on a palette of the bright optimistic colors I grew up in, adding neutrals, and exploring other ways to handle paint to represent my psychological instability of my feelings of Mexican American diaspora.
Estefania Flores 