2 posts tagged “erick perez”

Erick Perez

Artist Statement: “Untitled”

    “Untitled” is a linoleum block representation of cross-cultural traditions hidden to main stream society but understood by those who have inherited the cultures of two or more different ethnicities. For this project, I wanted to bring together two well-known traditions and have them operate as one.

    This idea of cross-cultural traditions, what was inspired this art work, however, after the process of making this began, I was able to make more and more connections between the culture of Mexico and the culture of Northern San Diego, primarily a white inhabited community. It was not my intend to present myself as being of mixed blood, both Mexican and Caucasian, but of a Mexican-American who has been heavily impacted by the traditions of the white, high-middle class community.

The dialogue that these two groups create is what inspired me for this project and other projects. To better communicate my ideas, I used blended two different colors using a technique better known to linoleum block artist as “rainbow rolls.” These “rainbow rolls,” conceptually depicts the idea of two becoming one, and that one, being an unpredictable result of two colors that does not completely fit into either original color.

Erick Perez

Hardware

Erick1

I began this assignment without any prior knowledge of what life may be like for Filipino-American citizens and Filipino immigrants in the US. As a Mexican-American, however, I knew that Filipino-Americans have experienced injustices in the US just like I have as a minority as well. For that reason, I knew I wanted to create a collage that made others aware of the injustices minorities must overcome while living in the US. More specifically, I wanted to learn about the way Filipino-American minorities have been treated unjustly.

 After much research on Filipino history, I found pain in discovering that many male Filipino Immigrants were given the opportunity to receive US citizenship by joining the arm forces and combating in war. I found this opportunity for Filipinos to be less as a benefit to them and more as a benefit to the US population. I began to see how the US did not see these people as actual human-beings but as tools and machines that could help the US win in war. They did not care about the lives of these people, they wanted to be successful in war and did not care if the Filipino populated died for it.

I used the metaphor for tools as a way of making a statement that proved that Filipinos where seen as nothing more than tools, tools as their disposal.