Carlota D.d.R EspinoZa (born 1943, Denver, Colorado) is an American painter, muralist, and activist in her Art. [1] [2] [3] She is one of the early Latina / Chicana muralists in Denver with works in Cuba, San Francisco, Texas, Arizona, and Colorado.
Carlota D.d.R EspinoZa is the middle child of 14 siblings growing up first 8 years in Fraser, Colorado, and attended the Rocky Mountain School of the Arts in the 1960s and the University of Colorado Denver Metro. [3] [4] During the 1960s she participated in the Centro Cultural Center, organizing exhibitions for artists and was involved in the 1969 "Hispano Art Fiesta / Cinco de Mayo" events in Denver. [3]
Early in her career, Carlota d.D.R EspinoZa painted two murals for the activist Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales' Crusade for Justice center, one of which was destroyed in a 1973 fire after a bombing at the center. [3] The surviving mural, Mexican Heros, painted in 1966, depicts Pancho Villa and Benito Juarez and was hung at the Crusade for Justice center.
EspinoZa is well known for her mural of La Guadalupe that is found on the altar of Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Denver. She obtained permission to paint this work from Pastor Jose Lara who claims to have told EspinoZa, "You don't have to have a picture of a perfect Lady of Guadalupe like in Mexico. Please paint a beautiful Chicana from north Denver." [4] [5] The mural, The Apparition of the Virgin Mary to Juan Diego in Mexico, was painted in 1976 and was on the altar until Father Benito Hernandez and church leadership had it removed it in 2010 under claims that the mural took away from the focus of the Holy presence. [4] This removal stirred protests calling for the mural's return, including the gathering of 70 signatures for a letter to Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput demanding the murals restoration at the church, with EspinoZa agreeing to perform the restoration work if the church decides to remove the wall. [6]
The mural, Pasado, Presente, Futuro is in the Byers branch of The Denver Public Library and "blends myth and reality, dream and truth. The past, present, future are one blood: Chicano!" [7] This mural was commissioned by the Friends of the Denver Public Library in 1977 and included in the City of Denver Public Art collection. [7]
Additionally, EspinoZa's screenprint We the People, Broken Treatys. from the National Chicano Screenprint Taller, 1988-1989, is held in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. [1] She also worked as a background and foreground artist, She has two sculpture's at the Denver.Co.Library.She also worked at the Denver Museum of Natural History for 9 nine years.
EspinoZa is also known for her work as a Chicano activist using her "art to express those in need, especially the Chicano Latino communities in Colorado." [4]
The Chicano Movement, also referred to as El Movimiento, was a social and political movement in the United States that worked to embrace a Chicano/a identity and worldview that combated structural racism, encouraged cultural revitalization, and achieved community empowerment by rejecting assimilation. Chicanos also expressed solidarity and defined their culture through the development of Chicano art during El Movimiento, and stood firm in preserving their religion.
Chicana feminism is a sociopolitical movement, theory, and praxis that scrutinizes the historical, cultural, spiritual, educational, and economic intersections impacting Chicanas and the Chicana/o community in the United States. Chicana feminism empowers women to challenge institutionalized social norms and regards anyone a feminist who fights for the end of women's oppression in the community.
Precita Eyes Muralists Association is a community-based non-profit muralist and arts education group located in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1977 by Susan and Luis Cervantes.
Ester Hernández is a California Bay Area Chicana visual artist recognized for her prints and pastels focusing on farm worker rights, cultural, political, and Chicana feminist issues.
Judith Francisca Baca is an American artist, activist, and professor of Chicano studies, world arts, and cultures based at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the co-founder and artistic director of the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) in Venice, California. Baca is the director of the mural project that created the Great Wall of Los Angeles, which was the largest known communal mural project in the world as of 2018.
Alma López is a Mexican-born Queer Chicana artist. Her art often portrays historical and cultural Mexican figures, such as the Virgin of Guadalupe and La Llorona, filtered through a radical Chicana feminist lesbian lens. Her art work is meant to empower women and indigenous Mexicans by the reappropriation of symbols of Mexica history when women played a more prominent role. The medium of digital art allows her to mix different elements from Catholicism and juxtapose it to indigenous art, women, and issues such as rape, gender violence, sexual marginalization and racism. This juxtaposition allows her to explore the representation of women and indigenous Mexicans and their histories that have been lost or fragmented since colonization. Her work is often seen as controversial. Currently, she is a lecturer at the University of California Los Angeles in the Department of Chicana/o Studies.
The Chicano Art Movement represents groundbreaking movements by Mexican-American artists to establish a unique artistic identity in the United States. Much of the art and the artists creating Chicano Art were heavily influenced by Chicano Movement which began in the 1960s.
Las Mujeres Muralistas were an all-female Latina artist collective based in the Mission District in San Francisco in the 1970s. They created a number of public murals throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, and are said to have sparked the beginning of the female muralist movement in the US and Mexico. Their murals were colorful and large scale and often focused on themes such as womanhood, culture, beauty, and socio-political change. Patricia Rodriguez, Graciela Carrillo, Consuelo Mendez, and Irene Perez are recognized as the founders and most prominent members of the collective, but other female Chicana artists assisted along the way and even joined later on, such as Susan Cervantes, Ester Hernandez, and Miriam Olivo among others.
Josefina Quezada was a Mexican-born Chicana muralist, photographer and supporter of the arts in Los Angeles. There are twelve murals in Los Angeles created by Quezada.
Yreina Cervantez is an American artist and Chicana activist who is known for her multimedia painting, murals, and printmaking. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, and her work is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Mexican Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum, and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.
Barbara Carrasco is a Chicana artist, activist, painter and muralist. She lives and works in Los Angeles. Her work critiques dominant cultural stereotypes involving socioeconomics, race, gender and sexuality, and she is considered to be a radical feminist. Her art has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Her work was exhibited in the 1990-1993 traveling exhibition Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation.
Patricia Rodriguez is a prominent Chicana artist and educator. Rodriguez grew up in Marfa, Texas and moved to San Francisco to later pursue an art degree at Merritt College and this is where she learned about the Mexican American Liberation Art Front (MALA-F) and the Chicano Movement. In 1970, Patricia received a scholarship to the San Francisco Art Institute and this is where she met Graciela Carrillo. Together, they created and founded the Mujeres Muralistas, the first Chicana women's mural collective in San Francisco.
Chicana art emerged as part of the Chicano Movement in the 1960s. It used art to express political and social resistance through different art mediums. Chicana artists explore and interrogate traditional Mexican-American values and embody feminist themes through different mediums such as murals, painting, and photography. The momentum created from the Chicano Movement spurred a Chicano Renaissance among Chicanas and Chicanos. Artists voiced their concerns about opression and empowerment in all areas of race, gender, class, and sexuality. Chicana feminist artists and Anglo-feminist took a different approach in the way they collaborated and made their work during the 1970's. Chicana feminist artists utilized artistic collaborations and collectives that included men, while Anglo-feminist artists generally utilized women-only participants.Art has been used as a cultural reclamation process for Chicana and Chicano artists allowing them to be proud of their roots by combining art styles to illustrate their multi-cultured lives.
Alicia Cardenas was an Indigenous Mexican American painter, muralist, educator, activist and community organizer. She became a tattoo artist with her own business at a young age and was noted for being a Chicana feminist artist in Denver's male-dominated tattoo scene. She owned the Sol Tribe tattoo shop, which had been a longstanding feature of Denver. She was featured in a documentary on Chicano muralism by the Chicano Murals of Colorado Project, referred to as These Storied Walls. In her community, she was known as "Mama Matriarch." At the age of 44, she was murdered in a mass shooting, along with four other people.
Irma Patricia Aguayo, also known as Patricia Aguayo, is a Chicano Park muralist and longtime activist. She was born and raised in San Diego, California. Both of her parents are from Mexico and she grew up in a Mexican culture household but was told by her parents that in order to succeed in America to act American outside her house. It was in middle school after meeting with her counselor, Ms. Barrios, where she first heard someone of Mexican descent call themselves Chicana that Aguayo realized that she also identified as Chicana. After researching Chicana artists, she realized that there weren't a lot of artists. So she decided that she would create her own artwork.
Lucila Villaseñor Grijalva is a Chicana muralist who was born in Los Angeles, California. Her art style is inspired by graffiti art.
Martha Ramirez-Oropeza is a muralist, painter, theater performer, and researcher known for her work on the pre-Hispanic Nahuatl culture.
Graciela Carrillo is a Chicana artist and muralist in San Francisco and member of the all-female Chicana/Latina artist group Mujeres Muralistas. She is a co-founder of Galería de la Raza, a gallery utilized to showcase the everyday lives of the Chicano community through art during the Chicano Civil Rights movement through the Chicano muralist movement.
A Chicano mural is an artistic expression done, most commonly, on walls or ceilings by Chicanos or Mexican-American artists. Chicano murals rose during the Chicano art movement, that began in the 1960, with the influence of Mexican muralism and the Mexican Revolution. The murals are an illustration of Chicano’s ethnic pride or a form of activism against police brutality, social issues, political issues, and civil rights issues. It started being done by young Chicano artists in commonly marginalized neighborhoods, schools, and churches, demonstrating cultural art and ideas. The murals are characterized by their art style of bright color, religious symbols, and cultural references to Mexican and Mexican American history. Chicano murals have been and are historically found in the Southwest states like Texas, Colorado, and most famously, California, where the national landmark Chicano Park is located. The popularity of the Chicano Murals has allowed a sense of community, culture, activism, and storytelling about elements of being Chicano. Various states are currently looking to preserve and restore some murals as they carry historical meaning for the geographical community and the Mexican-American community.
Arlette Lucero is a visual artist, educator, and illustrator.
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