Isidro
Pérez García

Isidro Pérez García is a borderless artist from Santa Ana, CA and Pachuca, Hidalgo, México. He is interested in how his art work and practice can contribute to anti-colonial histories and narratives, and he incorporates various forms of artistic production to examine themes of “modernity,” “tradition,” indigeneity, and migration. His current work considers how meaning is encoded in materials and how material interventions can be used as a way of engaging in anti-colonial world-building. He also does community work, which includes murals, community workshops, and arts education. He received his BFA from CalArts in 2019, and is currently pursuing his MFA in Visual Arts at UC San Diego.

Máquina del tiempo / Time Machine

Máquina del tiempo / Time Machine, 2021. In progress. Sculpture. Engraved maguey leaves, ixtle (maguey fiber), reclaimed wood, tree branches, wire. Sound element: “Máquina del tiempo” by Rodrigo González.

The time machine is covered with leaves from the maguey, which are engraved with a list of demands: Land back, BLM, Vivos los queremos, FTP, Chinga la migra, and Otro mundo es posible, among others. The sculpture plays the song "“Máquina del tiempo” by Rodrigo González, to commemorate my own rockero past, as well as the 1985 México City Earthquake, a moment when modernity came crashing down in México.

Grabé en la penca de un maguey / I carved on an agave leaf

Grabé en la penca del maguey / I carved on an agave leaf, 2020-2021. In progress. Engraving on maguey.

This project takes its title from the popular 1976 Mexican film starring Vincente Fernández, La ley del monte, where he sings about carving the name of his love onto the leaf of a maguey. Here, I am trying to re-imagine the act of carving on maguey leaves, thinking of it as a vernacular, possibly pre-colonial gesture. Instead of “love,” the engravings show iconography that symbolizes stories of immigrant diaspora, creating relationships of continuity between ideas of past and present, north and south, here and there. The maguey leaves come from Southern California suburban yards.

angry-maguey_Trim.mp4

Tierra y cenizas / Dirt and ashes

Tierra y cenizas / Dirt and ashes, 2021. In progress. Castings from adobe, wood ash, and red clay, with beads.

During times of pandemic and restricted movement, this project was a way to think about my relationality to the materials around me and to the land I live on. The adobe dirt comes from the Southern California back yard where I live. The wood ash comes from bonfires that my family and I have had in the back yard. Not only am I trying to work with more “elemental” materials and learn about/from them, but I’m also letting the material shape my experience. It’s also a gesture of reconnection, noticing around me the same materials that I remember from México but which I lost track of in this different U.S. context.

Felices fiestas de parte de Chilo y Pepe / Happy Holidays from Chilo and Pepe

Felices fiestas de parte de Chilo y Pepe / Happy Holidays from Chilo and Pepe, 2020. In collaboration with José Luís Gallo. Relational intervention.

This project was a continuation of a collaboration with José Luís Gallo, who I worked with for part of my First Year Review. Since Pepe and I are both immigrants from México, we knew we wanted to create some gesture of solidarity with flower vendors, who are most often recent immigrants from México and Central America and who we would constantly see working on the street corners throughout the pandemic. The idea behind the project was to start with materials that happened to be gifted to us, create something re-give-able from those same materials, and then to let one thing lead to another in a kind of chain of reciprocity, following a non-capitalist logic in the kinds of ultra-capitalist circumstances that keep flower vendors working on the street corners throughout the pandemic, and that keep people migrating in difficult circumstances. The chain started with Aztec-mash-up Xmas cards and ended with pressed flowers.

5-ironing_Trim.mp4