Juventino Aranda

Before I Wake

Dates May 19 - July 2, 2022

Opening Reception: “First Thursday,” June 2, 6-8pm
Artist talk: “Saturday After”, June 4 at noon

Greg Kucera Gallery is pleased to present our third one-person exhibition of work by Northwest artist Juventino Aranda. The multimedia artist explores issues of identity, social justice and the marginalization of cultures in today’s United States.

Aranda’s search for self-identity informs his process as it relates to Pre-Columbian Mexico and the social, political, and economic struggles of this late capitalistic American society.

Using a variety of materials and techniques the artist makes work that appropriates images and phrases from his childhood and family history. Paintings, several on Pendleton blankets, comment on the artist and his cultural identity.

“I am Mexican and second generation “American”. My work demarcates the intersection of my Mexican and American identities. I am not Hispanic, Latino, and definitely not Spanish —even though I live everyday with the consequences of their conquest. My art struggles with feeling foreign in my native land. Not unlike my personal experiences of never fully ascribing to one cultural category, my artwork also blends and manipulates the categories of painting and sculpture, craft and high art, manufacturing and handmade work to develop a new visual lexicon that reflects the contemporary conditions of my experiences. My processes and material choices are embedded in the experiences of marginalized communities.

”By using textiles as the canvas and embroidery as the paint, I am mirroring my attempt to uncover and celebrate those cultures and communities who are the foundation of a society but are often covered up or whitewashed by mainstream narratives. My wall-works are simultaneously paintings and sculptures. They include and combine paint, urethane resin, oil sticks, bronze, mirror, birch panel and corrugated cardboard. This media mixing is both high and low, native and foreign, other and accepted.”

— Juventino Aranda

Work in exhibition