Pilar Agüero-Esparza, 2022

Photo courtesy Pilar Agüero-Esparza

Claiming Space: Refiguring the Body in Landscape

About

The large-scale painted and woven canvas tapestry mural by Pilar Agüero-Esparza, brings together the power of the hand-made, references to the body through skin color and prismatic color found in the landscape. While juxtaposing ideas related to social hierarchies and stratums, the tapestry interweaves symbolic color both of the physical body (as represented by a skin tone palette) and color found in nature. Through the creation of a wall like structure, Agüero-Esparza evokes the tradition of Chicano muralism, which is often used to uplift marginalized communities, into the social space of the Montalvo Arts Center Italianate Garden. The wall created by the woven painting is meant for the viewer to interact with as a three-dimensional space. Viewers are encouraged to walk around it and reflect on the two different paintings that comprise this work. Of Color is meant as a proposition for viewers to consider the dynamic qualities of the interaction of color – both the optical properties of color as observed in the landscape and ideas of race, privilege and skin color as experienced in a social context.

This work was commissioned by Montalvo Arts Center and developed in the Lucas Artists Program.