As the millennium encroaches and post-modernism leaves behind the de(con)struction of weak, bloated, romanticized structures, where truth lies in a tautological wake, my work seeks to resolve issues and dilemmas defined by a purgatorial existence. Submersion into societal structures left no room for a subordinate culture, only reaction/s. Yet these realities soon collapsed. My cultural past demanded attention and required a voice. Intrigue turned into obsession and I sought out my ephemeral history.

My work was initially prompted by both a need to explore the possibility of a new medium, while continuing cultural traditions--ancestral and contemporary. As time ensued, the schism between my nature and my nurture became abysmal, and reconciliation between my indigenous heritage and occidental education became a necessity.

Through trial and error, glitter ultimately assumed its position as the definitive medium. Because my work centers on interpretation and identity, specifically the re/construction of complex, buried, hidden iconography, glitter allows the images to be translatable to others. Glitter is recognizable and is also able to restore the grandeur of an almost annihilated culture, while retaining a hint of irony and my genetic nihilism.

In effect, I use glitter as an extension and continuation of the mesoamerican sense of rococo, where pigment is pushed to such visual extremes--an aesthetic which has not easily been displaced by time. Glitter also fulfills my needs for a medium to address the concepts of reflection and multiplicity. The philosophers of the Mexica were thought to be able to place mirrors in front of an individual in order to reflect their true identity. Glitter conceptually reflects the viewer. The imagery is physically composed of thousands of individual pieces, but only in unity are these images formed, and only in unity are a culture’s symbols narrated and preserved by individuals. Glitter also echoes the small metallic flecks rubbed onto the bodies of Mexica priests used in ritual.

My work seeks and re/establishes the imagery of my heritage. What is valuable to a culture needs to be passed on, symbols need to be re/interpreted for the present age. My work is not only bound by western linear art traditions, but also propelled by my own native, cyclical traditions of the re/incarnations of our sacred imagery.