¿Quién Dijo Miedo, Muchachos? Si Para Morir Nacimos

Izzai Martinez Angulo MFA thesis exhibition

Reception: April 17, 6:00 - 9:00 p.m.
April 14 - April 16, 12:00 - 6:00 p.m. by appointment only
Main Gallery, Visual Arts Facility, UC San Diego

This body of work, ¿Quien Dijo Miedo, Muchachos? Si Para Morir Nacimos, explores the fluidity of my gendered identity through photography, staging and performance, particularly influenced by my mother and the American wrestler Shawn Michaels. In addition, this writing covers the relationship I possess with my family and the way their cisgendered bodies negotiate my androgyny. By channeling the Mexican home through handcrafted wooden frames, a staged domestic environment, and constructed moments of intimacy, I invite the viewer to feel as if they are home with us, simultaneously negotiating their own gendered existence. While striving to maintain a post-historic body and image, this work demonstrates the complexities of existing in the in-betweenness of an established traditional Mexican culture and an androgynous identity.