Samantha Espinoza
Samantha Maria Xochitl Espinoza is a second-generation Chicana artist coming from a Mexican and Salvadoran family. She grew up in L.A and in Denver, CO and currently resides on Lisjan Ohlone land (Oakland, CA). She references living in between worlds, identities, and homes as a marker of her queer, Chicana experience. Her work reveals her generational and personal history, moments, and traumas as openings for wider conversations on racialized, gendered, and capitalist oppressions. She creates art solely for other brown women to enjoy, and as a gift to her communities in the hopes that they will see parts of themselves reflected or whispered within her work. She is a youth educator, organizer, daughter, sister and falls in love frequently.
Artist Statement: Storytelling is one of the ways oppressed, marginalized, and ignored people share their realities. I examine what stories are passed on and the power in recounting one’s narrative through printmaking, textiles, video work, and writing. My own fractured history as a Salvadorena, Mexicana, Chicana-identified person existing in the United States provides the basis of sensitivity in my work. My work takes up space and acts as a form of resistance, similar to that of my brown body. Often, I reference historical trauma, brown queerness, and treatment of brown people in the United States. Our stories serve as evidence of prejudice and empowerment, the passing on of emotions. Through excavating the layers of my own narrative that create my reality, my printwork archives the tender components of coming from a marginalized family, community, and self. My passing of story to you is an act of survival despite violence inflicted on my past lives and the lives of women before me. Witnessing my work, you interact with my past and present families. You are experiencing restricted and oppressed narratives of my own community, as well as the beauty of our collective soul.
Website
http://www.samanthamariaespinoza.com/Residencies
- Studio Residency Grant (2022) , Etching