Diego Perez Aviles

Boricua en la luna

My exhibition is an exploration of Puerto Rican culture and identity. In the past year, I have reflected on what it means to me to be Puerto Rican. I find myself feeling a great sense of pride for my country but also a deep sadness for the tragedies and injustices we have had to endure. I wanted to display what defines me as Puerto Rican and highlight different aspects of life in Puerto Rico. That includes issues such as mass migration, the impact of Hurricane Maria, the earthquakes, the pandemic, and others. However, I also wanted to highlight the good parts of being Puerto Rican and show my island's beauty. That includes depicting the beautiful beaches, delicious food, and rich culture of Puerto Rico.

My initial inspiration for this exhibition was my life experiences. I wanted to create something meaningful to me, something that captured moments in my life that impacted me or gave me a new appreciation for my island. I was inspired by different artists and various art movements when working on my exhibition. I took inspiration from the abstract works of Picasso to the conceptual art of Puerto Rican artist Roberto “Yiyo” Tirado. These art movements helped me expand my creative vision and pushed me to go further in the conceptual meaning of my works. 

I used a selection of mediums to accurately represent the themes I wanted to explore. For example, I decided to make my Hurricane and earthquakes series out of ceramics because it allowed me to represent the houses in a three-dimensional manner instead of a drawing of a house. By making it out of ceramics, I could explore the idea of a broken home by actually breaking the ceramic house and having the hurricane series be three-dimensional I could show what the birds-eye view of the houses of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria looked like. 

The other artworks are mostly two-dimensional. I used mediums such as colored pencils, photography, acrylic paint, and paint markers to portray different aspects of the natural beauty of the island and the social issues present in our society. I arranged them with the space given to me with the ceramic pieces as a centerpiece with the two-dimensional artworks on the back wall. I placed the pieces with color balance and spacial balance in mind. Pieces with less color would be paired up with more colorful pieces. The various color schemes of the pieces relate to the many colors of the island. Colors also play a role in expressing the emotion of a piece. The black and white mask series expresses the dark times we faced during the pandemic while also showing the bright side of a better future as we begin to vaccinate more people and slowly return to how things were before the pandemic. 

I want the exhibition to be seen as a collection of all the negative and positive aspects of Puerto Rico all put together to create an honest portrayal of what life on the island is like. I want the audience to feel a sense of pride for their culture and island and see the hardships and tragedies we faced and reflect on the strong spirit we have as a people.