The installations that the artist Amalia Mesa-Bains creates are completely inspired by the cultural values with which she grew up as a Chicano.
It should be emphasized that his search for spiritual It has been both a personal practice and an artistic form, which gave rise to this artist being able to elaborate her famous and well-known altars and offerings to the deceased in a totally vernacular way.
But over the years, his interest extended to installations that recreated, in a highly creative way, grounds, libraries, laboratories and the so-called cabinets of curiosities as another form of artistic intervention and community knowledge.
For Amalia, themes associated with the land and nature have always been of great interest because of his genuine concern for Mesoamerican origins, as well as his appeal to themes of so-called colonial resistance and contemporary issues of social justice and human rights.
Cihuatl with Mirror, 1998. Amalia Mesa-Bains. Source: Artsy
The creative process of Amalia Mesa-Bains, who is currently 79 years old, is complex, requiring patience and a lot of time.
His famous installations comprise dozens and, very often, hundreds of objects: photographs of friends and family, scientific instruments, perfume bottles, personal medical equipment, holy cards, wedding veils, Mexican flags, eyeglasses and necklaces that belonged to his parents. , figurines, fabrics and clothing, sugar skulls, crucifixes, calendars, stamps, candles, glass shards, soil, scattered wood chips and plants.
Something important to note is that at the beginning of her career, Amalia was inspired by home altars and Day of the Dead offerings, adapting them to her own artistic purposes and artistic proposal.
Transparent Migration, by Amalia Mesa-Bains. Source: Amalia Mesa-Bains Website
Over the decades, its facilities became sacred spaces imbued with memory: from the dead, of history and all its atrocities, of lost innocence, of the mystical and mythological. A much more complex creation.
Another fascinating thing about Mesa-Bains' work that few people know is that he often incorporates objects from the permanent collections of the museums where he exhibits into his intricate installations.
If Amalia Mesa-Bains is not such a well-known artist, it is because her activism for a more equitable art world has often come first., but we are sure that over time it will be given the place it deserves.