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.