Lina Puerta
Untitled (Black) from the Latino Farmworkers in the US Portraits Series, 2018
This Series comes after the 2017 Latino Farmworkers in the US Tapestries Series, focused on portraits of Latino crop workers in the US, depicted frontally and staring directly towards the viewer through the foliage of edible plants, confronting them to come out of their invisibility.
Untitled (Tortoise 1), 2016
This work was created during the artist’s 2016 Workspace Residency at Dieu Donné handmade paper making studio, utilizing a laminating technique in which handmade paper is applied and joined together while it is still wet. Other materials, including the turtle shell, were mostly sourced through the Materials for the Arts.
Artworks descriptions courtesy of the artist
Lina Puerta, Untitled (Black), 2018. Handmade paper composed of pigmented cotton and linen pulp, embedded and finished with sequined fabric and lace, 19.5h x 13w inches. Image courtesy of the artist.
Lina Puerta, Untitled (Tortoise 1), 2016. Handmade abaca, cotton and linen papers, reused turtle shell, trims, leather scraps, discarded plastic construction net, lace, fake fur, shells from necklaces previously worn by the artist, reused doll eyeballs gifted to the artist by her late mother and recycled food netting, 28h x 16w x 2.5d inches. Image courtesy of the artist.
Detail of Lina Puerta, Untitled (Tortoise 1), 2016. Handmade abaca, cotton and linen papers, reused turtle shell, trims, leather scraps, discarded plastic construction net, lace, fake fur, shells from necklaces previously worn by the artist, reused doll eyeballs gifted to the artist by her late mother and recycled food netting, 28h x 16w x 2.5d inches. Image courtesy of Nadine Braquetti and KODA.
Process and Practice: a conversation with Lina Puerta
Lina Puerta (2016 Dieu Donné Workspace Resident) and Amy Jacobs (Dieu Donné Co-Director of Artistic Projects and Master Collaborator) in conversation about Puerta's artist practice, process in the papermaking studio, and current activities. This event was recorded live on June 18th, 2020.
About the Artist
Lina Puerta (b. 1969, Englewood, NJ)
Artist statement by Lina Puerta
My work draws from my experience as a Colombian-American artist, examining the relationship between nature and the human-made, and engaging themes of food justice, xenophobia, hyper-consumerism, and ancestral knowledge. I create mixed media sculptures, installations, collages, handmade-paper paintings and wall hangings by combining a wide range of materials, from artificial plants and paper pulp to found, personal and recycled objects. I start a work with concept in mind, but at the actual time of making, I manipulate materials intuitively, responding to the juxtaposition of colors and textures. Experimentation and layering are key to my practice, as I push and play with materials and mediums.
In my early work, I was interested in the female body and seeing it through the lens of nature, free of religious taboos and hypersexualization. I created sculptures of anatomical and botanical hybrids, highlighting their functions and intelligence as wondrous, spiritual and magical. In 2016, I was introduced through an artist residency with Dieu Donné to the art of handmade paper, and have since created several bodies of colorful and deeply layered works exploring themes of ecology, Latinx farmworkers and agriculture. These works are a vibrant celebration of plant intelligence, and simultaneously, an invitation to think more deeply on our broken relationship to nature that we may yet recover.
My most recent fabric works are inspired by Indigenous weaving patterns, through which women would pass down ancestral knowledge across generations. I also employ the domestic arts of quilting and embroidery that colonial women would come together to practice to escape social isolation and seek mutual aid. By integrating these two aspects of my Mestiza ancestry, I seek to uplift undervalued knowledge and recuperate alternative ways of living and relating that can ensure a sustainable and biodiverse future for generations to come.