No question, the current U.S. presidential administration is trying its damndest to erase and eradicate a pluralist society that long ago successfully synthesized a monumental diaspora of Latin American, Indigenous and Hispanic cultural legacies which have constructed localized identities that have effectively developed, controlled and disseminated their narratives crossing back and forth across political, cultural, religious and sociological spectrums for many generations.
But, art, in its finest bad-ass forms, also is more powerfully capable of transcending any political efforts to erase or eradicate an immense pluralistic legacy. Art is the lightning rod for protest, resistance and rebellion. Among artists coming from this multilayered diaspora, once a pejorative Spanish language term, chingón/chingona, has been reclaimed as a signifier of power, resistance, and excellence.
Representing a surprising amount of diversity in visual art media practices for a small group and showing, four nationally acclaimed artists — Andrew Alba, Horacio Rodriguez, Kelly Tapia-Chuning, and Sara Serratos — are highlighted in the Les Chingones exhibition, currently on display at the Material Gallery (2970 South West Temple) through July 11. The show includes art in sculpture, painting, ceramic, textiles, photography, and mixed media.
The sample of artworks for this theme is notably comprehensive for the compact gallery space at Material. Some of the work is overtly political and inflected with street and graffiti art tones while others are bold expressions of family memories and legacies that celebrate resilience and happiness in modest socioeconomic means. Others are clarifying and instructive in exploring the tensions between assimilation and preservation of heritage identities. Finally, there are pieces that underscore the indelible and indispensable elements of diaspora contributions and identities that have folded seamlessly into a society that should never hesitate to celebrate its exceptional pluralism, despite the hostile politics that aim to erase and destroy its incontrovertible presence in American history.
The breadth and depth of thematic synergy in Les Chingones are outstanding. Rodriguez works with themes arising from the simultaneous commodification, marginalization and exploitation of the people and culture along the southern borders. His wall pieces are based on pre-Columbian artifacts. From the original pieces, which are housed at the Utah Museum of Fine arts, he used advanced digital scanning, 3-D printing, traditional plaster mold-making, and slip-casting ceramic techniques to create these exceptional pieces.
As noted previously at The Utah Review, he adds bits of contemporary references that literally stun the viewer into fresh consideration of the sociopolitical, commercial marketing and cultural media dynamics in play, including older generation CD boom box players. Soda pop bottles, decorative perfume bottles and Lady Guadalupe candles, for example, become Molotov cocktails and guns as artifacts of resistance. Rodriguez has achieved a clarifying hybrid of contemporary cultural impulses and archaeological memories in his pieces.
38 x 13 x 11 inches, 2025.
His works have been added to permanent collections of the State of Utah, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake Community College and the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. He is a Frontier Fellow at Epicenter in Green River, Utah, and recently served as a key liaison for the 59th National Council on the Education of the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) conference in Salt Lake City, held last spring.
Alba, whose paintings were featured at a 2024 solo show at Material, returned for the group show not only with new paintings but sculptures. A self-taught artist, he has cultivated his visual language echoing Neo-Expressionism. As he said at the time in an interview with The Utah Review, the memories of growing up in his grandparents’ home (who were migrant workers from Mexico) — sitting at the kitchen table, watching his grandmother tend to her plants and absorbing the pride of their Mexican cultural heritage — set the foundation for curating his identity as an artist. His newest works telegraph a sharper vigor and visceral sensation.
58 x 58 inches (59 x 59 inches framed), 2024.
In works that can and do evoke sociopolitical sentiments, Alba articulates his rage in a mature and wise visual response, incorporating elements that seem innocuous at first, especially flowers but the colors and presentation also make the thematic expression evident. His La Matriarca sculpture, made of wood, plaster and oil paint is formidable for its symbolic defiance against removal or erasure. He invites the viewer to find their own terms on allowing the message, as they might interpret it, to seep into their consciousness. Thus, the viewer does not have to worry that their reaction could differ from or eclipse the focus of Alba’s artistic expression, which already thrives on its own merits.
Working with fibers, Tapia-Chuning, a mixed-race Xicana artist of Indigenous descent from southern Utah, intricately dismantles serapes, which originally during colonial times in Mexico were worn by Spanish men who came from an elite socioeconomic class. Later, the vaqueros, Mexican rancheros and countrymen who tended herds of cattle, used serapes either as blankets or capes. Even later, decorative fringes were added to serapes, making them objects of adornment to be displayed and became commodified for purchase by tourists.
Tapia-Chuning’s creative process produces a brilliantly elucidating metaphor that restores the prominence of her ancestral Indigenous heritage while subverting the serape’s colonial signifiers. The hybrid nature of her visual art language resonates in unison with her fellow artists who are featured in Les Chingones. As she explained her process, “Each blanket is dismantled intuitively, starting from points of focus within the blankets themselves, either the dazzler in the center (a motif with indigenous origins), or a color palette that triggered a memory.” She added, “I am interested in the part I play within the history of the textile. The serapes were originally woven exclusively by men. By using my hand, my labor as a woman of indigenous descent, an act of reclamation and re-indigenization takes place.”
Living and working between Utah and Montana, Tapia-Chuning received her master of fine arts degree last year from Cranbrook Academy of Art where she received a Gilbert Fellowship. Her work has been included in exhibitions at various locations including the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art and in gallery venues in New York City and Los Angeles, as well as in private collections and public collections including the Onna House in East Hampton, NY and the Southern Utah Museum of Art.
Now working in Utah (on Timpanogos, Shoshone, Goshute, and Ute lands), Serratos is an interdisciplinary artist and art educator originally from Hidalgo, Mexico (on Ēxcān Tlahtōlōyān and Hñähñu territories). Working with photography, mixed media and found objects, Serratos has selected an excellent representative sample from her prolific output. Among the pieces is ABCCh from her American Dream Wall series, which she started during the pandemic. The piece encompasses the letters of the alphabet and includes their respective Spanish pronunciation.
Explaining the provenance for this series, Serrratos noted a point that stands out for its acuity and incredibly astute timeliness in this political moment: “Being a total stranger, you don’t know anybody, and nobody knows you. Your mother tongue is not the local language. The color of your skin seems to be relevant to this society. What about your homeland? Are you escaping from something or someone? As time passes, you become accustomed to the land and the environment; your body is part of it now. Is this foreign space better than your previous home? Is this land still foreign to you? Is the adapting process worth it? There is a nostalgia of stopping time for a bit and asking ourselves: do we still have dreams?”
In her metal sculpture Fruits and Vegetables Stickers Sign (Letrero de Calcomanías de Frutas y Verduras), which comes from her Who Sustains Our Tables? (Quién Sostiene Nuestras Mesas), Serratos includes the essential details about the barcodes that are scanned to show the price of the produce, as well as their country of origin. To the supermarket customer, such information is taken as routine or even ignored but Serratos compellingly draws our attention to a point that must be comprehended and appreciated: “In this interchange of produce with currency, I want to emphasize who has worked the land. Since the colonization of the Americas, the exploitation of the land by the Europeans, and now by the governments of the state nations and private corporations, the people that worked and continue to work the land are predominantly indigenous, Afro-descendant, and mestizos.”
Serratos migrated to Utah at the age of 26, the same age her great-grandfather, a locomotive operator, was when he lost his life in a coal mine accident in what was once Rains, Utah. Her artwork has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in the United States, Mexico, and online. An alumna of the University of Utah’s master of fine arts program in photography and digital imaging, she is currently in an artist residency at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art. Currently, she serves as the exhibitions and education director at the Bountiful Davis Art Center and as an adjunct assistant professor in the University of Utah’s department of art and art history.
For more information about the show including a closing reception on July 11, starting at 6 p.m., as well as arranging an appointment to view the exhibition, see the Material Gallery website.