OPENING RECEPTION
Saturday, April 18th, 6-9pm
GALLERY HOURS
Saturdays and Sundays 12-6pm
Or by appointment: (215)384-3369/40th.air.app@gmail.com
50% of the sales of this art show will be donated in favor of the caravan tour of the 43 missing students from Ayotzinapa Mexico, with the verification of RIUM (Red de Immigrantes Unidos port Mexico en PA) Network of Immigrants United from Mexico in PA.
About the artist:
I am a multidisciplinary, self-taught artist, teaching artist. Born in Mexico City in a mixed Mexican-indigenous and Spanish working class family. In my childhood, during visits to my father's family around Xico, Veracruz in Mexico, I experienced the surviving Mayan, Olmec, Aztec and Catholic cultures, traditional farming, and popular crafts that represent and express the life of the indigenous Mexican people. Later, I cultivated a sense of freedom to express my personal dreams and reality by immersing myself in indigenous cultures in the states of Oaxaca, Veracruz, Puebla, Michoacan and Tlaxcala. I grew up believing and experiencing independent thinking, realizing that people are rich in resourcefulness in their own power for self-control. My paternal grandmother migrated from Xico, Veracruz to Mexico City before I was born, and I have continued this family experience with my own migration to Philadelphia eleven years ago, where I have joined the diversity of lives and cultural exchanges of this city. In Mexico a great emphasis is placed on the connection between human beings and the natural world. In 2007 I got my Aztec name "Tletxayacoatl" (The Snake with the Face on Fire) in a summer solstice ceremony in Chicago with Master "Ocelotcoatl" (The Jaguar & Snake) and Master "Xavier Quijas Yxayotl". I also won a grant from The Institute for Cultural Partnership to learn how to make "Tlapizcalli" clay flutes with the Master "Xavier Quijas Yxayotl", my first formal training in art. I have continued this work on my own making a clay instrument called the "Ehekachiktli" -The Dead Whistle- an instrument that is very old.
My artistic name BRUJO DE LA MANCHA was giving to me by my friends through my artistic development. My name, Brujo, means "witch" in Spanish. Because transformation is a magic power that humans have inside, I encourage people to focus on the present, to recycle and embrace what they have around them now.
