Danielle Sierra – Memphis Flyer

Danielle Sierra’s father used to look at her through his “supernatural telescope.” He would be back home in California, while she was in Memphis, sharing her artwork with him over the phone and the internet. “He would always tell me, ‘I’m looking through my supernatural telescope at all the marvels of you,’” Sierra says. He died this past May, but Sierra remains comforted, knowing that “he’s in heaven, with his supernatural telescope.”

With that in mind, her exhibit, now on display at Crosstown Arts, is titled “Supernatural Telescope” in his honor, her father Ernie being one of her greatest supporters in life and art. Even when she was little he taught her how to shade spheres and cubes; he later encouraged her to paint on wood instead of canvas, which would become a trademark of her style. “The funny thing is, he never told me he was an art major,” Danielle says. “He went to [California State University,] Northridge in California, but he had to leave to provide for his family. He only told me when I told him I was an art major.”

Even though he was talented in his own right, Danielle says, “He would never say he was like a capital-A artist.” Yet she’s found inspiration in his work, exhibiting it alongside her own as part of her thesis exhibition for University of Memphis’ MFA program in 2022. “It’s crazy that it was in this very gallery [at Crosstown Arts].”

For “Supernatural Telescope,” too, Ernie’s sketches and woodworking pieces are displayed. Danielle, for her part, has created responses to some of them. For one, Ernie had drawn a surrealist, Dali-inspired landscape of the Crucifixion, and Danielle has drawn her own in her own style, the two shown side by side, father like daughter. She’s also created pieces representing her memories of her father, with nods to quotes he’d say, to the hours they spent watching the Blue Angels in the sky, to the stories he’d tell about running away from home with only two peanut butter sandwiches.

Though these memories are personal, Danielle has included universal imagery of flowers, angels, and stars throughout to capture a message of hope for all. In one piece, I Get by with a Little Help from My Friends, she’s asked her artist friends to paint wooden flowers she’s cut, the idea being to create “this little garden as a representation of my art community,” she says. “None of us gets here alone.

“Everybody should have a supernatural telescope,” Danielle continues, “and be able to look back through all the times that we’ve experienced love and memories that uplift us. … I hope that [viewers] feel loved in a way that the work speaks to them. A lot of my inspiration comes from the Bible and my love for God, and I just always try to translate that through maybe the shading of a color or a line, and just love being the dominant force behind my work in one way or another.”

“Supernatural Telescope:” Danielle Sierra, Crosstown Arts, 1350 Concourse, through May 11th.

Growing up in Colombia, Johana Moscoso resented the fragility of the two porcelain figures her mother treasured, figurines whose fingers and nose would always break. Years later and now living in Memphis, she stands in the gallery housing the Dixon’s collection of decorative porcelain — equally untouchable, fragile, and overwhelmingly European — but in the room over, in the interactive gallery’s “Who Is That Artist?” exhibit, Moscoso holds the hands of her life-size recreations of porcelain figures in the collection. These pieces are structured with recycled cardboard and paper, with their exteriors clad in used denim. “I wanted to create something that people can touch,” she says.

In creating her sculptures, Moscoso took inspiration from the Colombian New Year’s tradition of Año Viejo, where friends and family make an effigy of the past year to burn as a way to welcome the next and say goodbye to the last. Likewise, the artist hopes to burn these sculptures, honoring her roots and looking to the future, but for now, she strives to make accessible what was once inaccessible in the porcelain. For instance, in one piece, where the original depicts a woman assisting a young lady at a vanity, Moscoso doesn’t include the young lady; instead, a stool sits for anyone to take her place and to see themselves as part of the art.

Similarly, Danielle Sierra, another artist in the exhibit, also aims to make visitors a part of her art. In her typical work, Sierra reinterprets Mexican milagros, religious charms used to pray for miracles. Instead of saints, images often found in milagros, Sierra renders faces of those in her life enshrined in rays of gold and surrounded by flowers. “I wanted to focus on the human being the miracle,” she says. “We tend to not see the beauty in ourselves, but we’re so quick to see it in flowers and plants and creation.”

In the exhibit, Sierra has created a photo stand-in for guests to see their own faces as part of one of her milagros. “It’s a matter of you becoming those things that you see as beautiful,” she says.

The third artist in the exhibit is Karla Sanchez, who challenges visitors with a comic-making station to reflect on what plagues their minds — their hopes, fears, worries. As an artist who has struggled to understand her complex identity as a DACA recipient from Mexico, she has found comics to be a therapeutic outlet to express her experiences as an immigrant. She hopes that by sharing her illustrations in the exhibit, she can inspire others to find healing in creativity, whether that’s in drawing or writing or something else entirely.

Altogether, the three Latina artists hope to uplift their respective cultures and welcome others into their work. For more information on the exhibit and the artists, visit dixon.org.

“Who Is that Artist?”, Dixon Gallery & Gardens, on display through April 16th.