Today we’d like to introduce you to Cynthia Velásquez.
Cynthia, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I decided to pursue a career in art-making in the middle of college. At Cal Poly Pomona, I was in a Graphic Design program and switched to a Fine Arts option to concentrate on painting. I also added a major in Gender, Ethnic, Multicultural Studies. I was packed with projects of intersectional potential. I saw this opportunity as a useful way to gain experience in radical storytelling through art and writing. At the time, I was an active student leader with enough access to participate in organizing events that centered art-making. With various open-mic nights, art shows, and collaborations with student-led groups, I formed a connection with the Pomona and LA LGBTQ art’s community. As a student leader, I met artist Adelina Anthony who saw my work and potential. In 2014, I was added to her film production team for her upcoming queer grassroots film, Bruising for Besos. My experience on her team opened new reflections and connections in the coming year leading up to graduate school.
Through many heartbreaks and breakthroughs, I decided to go back to school. I was admitted to California Institute of the Arts in the School of Critical Studies’ Aesthetics & Politics program to expand my visual art-making with theory research. I produced a thesis project titled, “The Phenomenology of Home: The Aesthetic of a Queer Diaspora Place-Making,” exploring identity formation and home through the diaspora imaginary. Using a familial photo archive, a short film, literary works, and song, I piece together a phenomenological relationship between memory, object, and desire. I address complexities of identity as a temporary but significant process toward survival. I aim to highlight modes of survival that connect immigrant families and communities together in a diaspora. Currently, I am expanding my thesis project into multiple multimedia replicas of home fronts from family photos. As a teaching artist, I am committed to creative-making as liberation. I see teaching as the next iteration of my art-making career.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
My experience as a working artist has not been smooth. As a first-generation graduate school student, higher education was seen as a way out of low income living. However, school loan and semester payments are difficult to meet.
Elite art spaces continue to be predominantly white and are difficult to access. Elite white spaces that I have been able to enter left me feeling tokenized. An overwhelming amount of experiences have had me second guess the power of academia as a safe space to explore and refine my art practice.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
Born in Los Angeles, California, her work centers the ‘home’ as a space shaped by queer diaspora and memory. Mediums include multimedia painting, ink, clay, and photography. They have participated in several solo and group shows and film festivals in Southern California and across the US. She studied at Cal Arts in the Aesthetics & Politics Program, School of Critical Studies.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
I understand success as resiliency. I think success is relative to one’s experience and rooted in the present. Identifying one’s struggles and planning a way toward better circumstances can be a marker of success.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.cynthiakvelasquez.com
- Instagram: @cyyynthiavelasqqquez
Image Credit:
(1) Taken by staff at Self-Help Graphics; all other photos are taken by Cynthia Velásquez
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