Latinx Heritage Month Featured Artists
Papermaking has always been a very global craft, and while North American Hand Papermakers exists to connect and bond craftspeople, artisans and artists within the U.S. and Canada, we humbly recognize that many of our community members span backgrounds and origins as deep and diverse as the rest of the continent. Latinx Heritage Month (though officially called Hispanic Heritage Month) spans from September 15th until October 15th—and it is with great honor and respect that we highlight these artists, and showcase the breadth of artistry within our community.
Our six (6) artists highlighted for the month are Candy Alexandra González, Amelia Avilés-Lugo, Maria Amalia Wood, Maria Carolina Larrea Jorquera, Jocmarys Viruet Felicianos, and Irasema Quezada Hammock.
Candy Alexandra González
Images provided by Gonzalez, from their latest show ‘Reverence’, a series of altar installations showcasing pulp paintings and handmade paper flowers. used with permission.
Candy Alexandra González is a Little Havana-born and raised, NYC and Philadelphia-based, multidisciplinary visual artist, poet, activist and trauma-informed art educator.
Candy received their MFA in Book Arts + Printmaking from the University of the Arts in 2017. Since graduating, they have been a 40th Street Artist-in-Residence in West Philadelphia, a West Bay View Fellow at Dieu Donné in Brooklyn, NY, Leeway Art and Change Grant Recipient and the 2021 Linda Lee Alter Fellow for the DaVinci Art Alliance. Candy is currently an Art + Art Education doctoral student at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Amelia Avilés-Lugo
images provided by Avilés-Lugo and used with permission.
Amalia Avilés-Lugo is a Puerto Rican artist who approaches island-based topics in their creative work. They use bilingual poetry alongside visual elements and materials to communicate instability and resistance ideas. They invite the viewer to consider a political conversation where connections, diversity, and horizontality are proposed as a means of subverting the isolating discourses imposed on archipelagos like Puerto Rico. Their use of experimental letterpress processes, printmaking, papermaking, bookmaking, writing, and installation are merely vehicles to engage with viewers.
Maria Amalia Wood
Images acquired from artist’s website and used with permission.
Maria Amalia Wood holds a bachelor’s degree in General Art with a minor in Visual Communications from Judson University and an MFA in Textile Art and Design from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For the past four years, Maria Amalia has been creating paper and textile objects that refer to memories of lived experiences. While constantly honing her ability to intelligently compose, Maria Amalia has developed a process for manipulating the wet pulp that allows her to work freely, creating marks and passages that evolve organically through a repetitive process of building an image with layered, ripped, painted, and collaged forms resulting in complex surfaces that carry rich color and texture passages.
M. Carolina Larrea Jorquera
Images provided by Jorquera, and acquired from the Artist’s website and used with permission.
Maria Carolina Larrea Jorquera is currently Vice President of IAPMA and Member of the international board of advisors of Hand Papermaking magazine. They hold a Doctor of Arts, Production and Research and Master in Artistic Production from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain, as well as a Degree in Arts in the specialty of Engraving, from the School of Art of Fr. Catholic University of Chile.
A visual artist and Associate Professor at the UC School of Art, they teach in the 1st year courses and the specialties of Paper as a Media of Expression and Artist Books. Their focus of research is on the philosophy of doing as a path of self-knowledge and active meditation, linked mainly to the traditional profession of Japanese role in relation to other trades typical of Chilean and Latin American popular culture.
Carolina’s book “De la Tradición A la Creación” or “From Tradition to Creation” (Ediciones UC, Santiago, 2021) will be published soon. It is a compilation of information from main author who research on history and technique of hand papermaking and all aspects involving its process, practice and meaning. In this way, the book presents a global view about its developing and transformation, from its origin in China until its arriving in the western world. The route that meant the encounter with diverse cultures trough the route mainly traced by Buddhist monks, in their mission of transmit the dharma, and then, with this same purpose, Muslim and Christians defunded their religious doctrines.
Jocmarys Viruet Felicianos
images provided by Feliciano and used with permission.
Jocmarys Viruet Feliciano is a papermaker and book artist from Puerto Rico. Her artistic practice focuses on her experiences as an islander, exploring her ancestry, the concept of healing and identity, decolonization of the Latin American mind and the exploration of spiritual energies that cannot be seen, while focusing on the qualities of fiber, textile, language, and the book form.
Jocmarys holds a BA in Visual Arts from the University of Puerto Rico, Recinto de Mayagüez and an MFA from the University of Iowa Center for Book. She has worked as an intern at the Morgan Conservatory in Cleveland, Ohio as well as an assistant to Tim Barrett at the UICB Oakdale Paper Research & Facility and Rare Book School. She is a recipient of the Iowa Arts Fellowship and the Graduate Diversity Fellowship. Jocmarys’ first papermaking experience was in 2014 as an exchange student in South Korea and she has given various workshops of bookbinding at the Museo Casa del Libro in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Irasema Quezada Hammock
images provided by Hammock and used with permission.
Irasema Quezada Hammock is an artist who lives and works in Northport, Alabama. A native of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, her work explores subjects on immigration, social justice and mental health.
As a child growing up in Mexico, she displayed signs of artistic talent that were reinforced by being around her family of designers, artists and craftsmen. Her abrupt move to Alabama alienated her from extended family and set new challenges. This new life in the United States came with life-altering situations, including living as an undocumented immigrant for over 20 years, experiencing the loss of both her siblings, and struggling with her own mental health.
Irasema graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with honors from the University of Alabama in Birmingham. She is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree in book arts from The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, AL.