[Music]
this could be a way of learning less
porque esto un poco nervioso I mean
let’s just tell me what can be a spender
okay pero arm so Lucy the part the
critic once said that all art is
political but not all artists realize
that this is so I’m paraphrasing her
words James Baldwin the great u.s.
American writer once said that he was
asked how he felt about being homosexual
in black and he replied I feel like I
hit the jackpot these are these are some
of my favorite quotes that have helped
to define my life as as a human being
the first speaks to my experience as an
artist and the second to my experience
as a gay man and as a mexican-american
so growing up in the u.s. in the 90s
before the Internet as a young gay boy
it was really hard the kind of images I
saw reflected of myself as a gay person
on like TV in the movies tended to be
really negative there were images there
were either laughingstocks
or tragic figures who were doomed to die
or or sinister but basically I could
never see anything reflected in the
world at large that that was an image
that I could imagine as a life for
myself like any kind of an ocean of love
or normalcy or a hero a person at the
center of the story is because of things
that I think that straight people take
for granted or something that were just
simply denied to to me as a gay as a
young gay boy and well you know to the
wider gay community so being my
experience my personal experience
growing up wasn’t any easier I grew up
with a Mexican mother was very Catholic
very conservative and it was it was that
was really hard to it’s like her values
were patriarchal and and frankly
machista and growing up in that context
you know I was taught to feel a lot of
fear and shame and sadness about myself
and about this thing I couldn’t control
about myself there was really nowhere
you know to put these emotions which is
really difficult luckily I wasn’t
bullied by the kids around me and I was
you know treated pretty well but
nonetheless I used to think about you
know like killing myself and things like
that is a
it was really depressing and I think
that I did my life in a little different
had I’ve been bullied more than I was I
might not be here today so being Latino
in an American context was also
difficult
my mother was an undocumented immigrants
and I saw the way that the world around
me treated people of color like my
mother and undocumented immigrants and
Mexicans Mexican Americans in the US and
it tended not to be very positive and
the image and popular culture of Latinos
was also something that you know they
were always marginalized and stereotyped
so I felt doubly marginalized as a gay
person and as as a mexican-american so
my parents were you know very concerned
my education and they didn’t have a lot
of money so they used to buy antique
children’s books and here are some
examples of the kinds of the kind of
books that I used to love a lot when I
was growing up so I had I had these
books and I would study them and paint
them and you know think about them as a
little kid and the thing that all of
these kinds of images have in common is
that is that everybody in them is white
and everybody in them is straight so I
feel like my youthful feelings of
alienation had a little bit to do with
the fact that I never saw myself
reflected in the kinds of work I loved
so much starting at the youngest age so
the thing about these paintings is that
they have power like like all art
they’re political as you see the part
would say they’re telling us a story
about how we view ourselves as a people
and as a society they’re telling us
about about gender men and women are
expected to play very prescribed roles
they’re telling us about bodies
everybody in these paintings are skinny
they’re telling us about race everybody
in them is white and they’re telling us
about about sexuality it’s always a man
who falls in love with a woman and it’s
never any other way they’re telling us
that the princess always has to be a
white woman that the nine shining armor
will always be a straight man and the
kiss at the end of the story will always
be between a man and a woman and
anything else is unnatural because it
literally never happens so so I went to
art school I studied installation and
performance but it
certain point I realized that my love of
painting was just too great and I wanted
to to revisit these kinds of paintings
that I used to love so much as a kid and
I decided that this time I knew
something more about it I understood
what they were saying and I understood
what was being excluded and I wanted to
include myself and people like myself in
the narrative and tell paintings from a
gay perspective and in a Mexican
perspective in which gay love and gay
kids could be celebrated and I started
making paintings like these and it was
really empowering because I felt like I
could imagine myself as that child that
used to be that that child had been you
know afraid and ashamed and and I’d
taken away that shame and put desire at
the center of it I had read I had made a
painting in which the the vision of love
that we as a culture share could be
shared with people like me and it felt
like it worked because I started getting
fan letters and my work started selling
more and so I wanted to make paintings
that would address history and give a
voice to gay or gay ancestors as own
voices have been silenced and and I
wanted to to make paintings where where
shame was stripped away and pride was
celebrated so so then so having done
these kinds of paintings I realized that
the possibilities are essentially
endless because nobody had been
representing these because of paintings
except for straight white people and
that everybody else was was missing and
that there were a million stories that I
could tell but making a painting that
features a white gay man or a Mexican
gay man it’s something that I could
easily do because I myself represent
both of these groups and I don’t need
ask anyone’s permission I can do this
for my own my own perspective telling my
own story and celebrating my own desire
but if I’m going to tell a painting
about another minority that is not from
a group of myself if I wanted painted
women if I want to paint transgender men
or women I need to I need to do
something else I need to like approach
the models so so these are the kinds of
paintings I started making afterwards
you know celebrating a wider variety of
people and to do this I need to I need
to talk to the model and ask them what
their experience was
I need to listen to them and tell listen
to them when they told me their stories
and represent that and and not represent
the fantasy that I had brought to it
beforehand I need to approach the model
and the work that I’m making with
empathy and extend that empathy through
the work to a broader audience so that
that audience can if they’re coming from
the outside can can experience like the
kind of love that I’m trying to
celebrate I feel like to make the kind
of painting that I want to make I need
to approach it with an open mind and
make something that’s beautiful and
something that’s loving and something
that speaks to the model to the models
community to the wider queer community
and to like the wider human community a
story about the diversity of gender and
the the universality of love so so I
consider myself an activist I feel like
there’s a story that I have to tell and
an ability that I have to communicate
and to add to a conversation I feel like
with the work that I can do I can move a
conversation along and I can celebrate
pride celebrate love and celebrate
acceptance so if I’m ever asked how I
feel about being Mexican and and and gay
I feel like I can honestly reply I feel
like I hit the jackpot thank you very
much
[Music]
this could be a way of learning less
porque esto un poco nervioso I mean
let’s just tell me what can be a spender
okay pero arm so Lucy the part the
critic once said that all art is
political but not all artists realize
that this is so I’m paraphrasing her
words James Baldwin the great u.s.
American writer once said that he was
asked how he felt about being homosexual
in black and he replied I feel like I
hit the jackpot these are these are some
of my favorite quotes that have helped
to define my life as as a human being
the first speaks to my experience as an
artist and the second to my experience
as a gay man and as a mexican-american
so growing up in the u.s. in the 90s
before the Internet as a young gay boy
it was really hard the kind of images I
saw reflected of myself as a gay person
on like TV in the movies tended to be
really negative there were images there
were either laughingstocks
or tragic figures who were doomed to die
or or sinister but basically I could
never see anything reflected in the
world at large that that was an image
that I could imagine as a life for
myself like any kind of an ocean of love
or normalcy or a hero a person at the
center of the story is because of things
that I think that straight people take
for granted or something that were just
simply denied to to me as a gay as a
young gay boy and well you know to the
wider gay community so being my
experience my personal experience
growing up wasn’t any easier I grew up
with a Mexican mother was very Catholic
very conservative and it was it was that
was really hard to it’s like her values
were patriarchal and and frankly
machista and growing up in that context
you know I was taught to feel a lot of
fear and shame and sadness about myself
and about this thing I couldn’t control
about myself there was really nowhere
you know to put these emotions which is
really difficult luckily I wasn’t
bullied by the kids around me and I was
you know treated pretty well but
nonetheless I used to think about you
know like killing myself and things like
that is a
it was really depressing and I think
that I did my life in a little different
had I’ve been bullied more than I was I
might not be here today so being Latino
in an American context was also
difficult
my mother was an undocumented immigrants
and I saw the way that the world around
me treated people of color like my
mother and undocumented immigrants and
Mexicans Mexican Americans in the US and
it tended not to be very positive and
the image and popular culture of Latinos
was also something that you know they
were always marginalized and stereotyped
so I felt doubly marginalized as a gay
person and as as a mexican-american so
my parents were you know very concerned
my education and they didn’t have a lot
of money so they used to buy antique
children’s books and here are some
examples of the kinds of the kind of
books that I used to love a lot when I
was growing up so I had I had these
books and I would study them and paint
them and you know think about them as a
little kid and the thing that all of
these kinds of images have in common is
that is that everybody in them is white
and everybody in them is straight so I
feel like my youthful feelings of
alienation had a little bit to do with
the fact that I never saw myself
reflected in the kinds of work I loved
so much starting at the youngest age so
the thing about these paintings is that
they have power like like all art
they’re political as you see the part
would say they’re telling us a story
about how we view ourselves as a people
and as a society they’re telling us
about about gender men and women are
expected to play very prescribed roles
they’re telling us about bodies
everybody in these paintings are skinny
they’re telling us about race everybody
in them is white and they’re telling us
about about sexuality it’s always a man
who falls in love with a woman and it’s
never any other way they’re telling us
that the princess always has to be a
white woman that the nine shining armor
will always be a straight man and the
kiss at the end of the story will always
be between a man and a woman and
anything else is unnatural because it
literally never happens so so I went to
art school I studied installation and
performance but it
certain point I realized that my love of
painting was just too great and I wanted
to to revisit these kinds of paintings
that I used to love so much as a kid and
I decided that this time I knew
something more about it I understood
what they were saying and I understood
what was being excluded and I wanted to
include myself and people like myself in
the narrative and tell paintings from a
gay perspective and in a Mexican
perspective in which gay love and gay
kids could be celebrated and I started
making paintings like these and it was
really empowering because I felt like I
could imagine myself as that child that
used to be that that child had been you
know afraid and ashamed and and I’d
taken away that shame and put desire at
the center of it I had read I had made a
painting in which the the vision of love
that we as a culture share could be
shared with people like me and it felt
like it worked because I started getting
fan letters and my work started selling
more and so I wanted to make paintings
that would address history and give a
voice to gay or gay ancestors as own
voices have been silenced and and I
wanted to to make paintings where where
shame was stripped away and pride was
celebrated so so then so having done
these kinds of paintings I realized that
the possibilities are essentially
endless because nobody had been
representing these because of paintings
except for straight white people and
that everybody else was was missing and
that there were a million stories that I
could tell but making a painting that
features a white gay man or a Mexican
gay man it’s something that I could
easily do because I myself represent
both of these groups and I don’t need
ask anyone’s permission I can do this
for my own my own perspective telling my
own story and celebrating my own desire
but if I’m going to tell a painting
about another minority that is not from
a group of myself if I wanted painted
women if I want to paint transgender men
or women I need to I need to do
something else I need to like approach
the models so so these are the kinds of
paintings I started making afterwards
you know celebrating a wider variety of
people and to do this I need to I need
to talk to the model and ask them what
their experience was
I need to listen to them and tell listen
to them when they told me their stories
and represent that and and not represent
the fantasy that I had brought to it
beforehand I need to approach the model
and the work that I’m making with
empathy and extend that empathy through
the work to a broader audience so that
that audience can if they’re coming from
the outside can can experience like the
kind of love that I’m trying to
celebrate I feel like to make the kind
of painting that I want to make I need
to approach it with an open mind and
make something that’s beautiful and
something that’s loving and something
that speaks to the model to the models
community to the wider queer community
and to like the wider human community a
story about the diversity of gender and
the the universality of love so so I
consider myself an activist I feel like
there’s a story that I have to tell and
an ability that I have to communicate
and to add to a conversation I feel like
with the work that I can do I can move a
conversation along and I can celebrate
pride celebrate love and celebrate
acceptance so if I’m ever asked how I
feel about being Mexican and and and gay
I feel like I can honestly reply I feel
like I hit the jackpot thank you very
much
[Music]
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