I am a multidisciplinary artist who explores trauma through issues of race, gender and labor by means of visual art and installation. Originally from Guatemala, I am a Chicago based artist defining authentic identity through my practice – which manifests as emotions and past experiences. My work draws greatly from my background as an Olympic athlete, competing at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in swimming, which resulted in a devastating shoulder injury that led to my retirement from the sport.

Within my work, I explore the ways in which my life experiences have augmented what we perceive as our reality. Individual realities represent what happens behind closed doors and away from the public eye. My authentic reality throughout my life has been completely different from what others have been able to see, as I endured psychological, physical and sexual abuse growing up. It wasn’t until three years ago that I was able to separate from my abuser to stop this cycle and process these events. I use the recollection of pain, jointly in mind and body, to deal with post traumatic stress in a cathartic way through my work. As a result, my practice has a heightened focus on sharing personal experiences in hope of creating dialogues around difficult topics to bring awareness and inspire a positive change in the world.

I work within two dimensional, including painting, drawing and printmaking, and three dimensional processes that become installations within an ephemeral space. I channel the body and movement through my pieces to show our connection to our past and present experiences through muscle memory. In my most recent work, I deal with ideas of identity, movement and trauma to the body through the use of numbers. Through this technique, I break down the dehumanizing process of defining ourselves according to our grades, time standards in a sport, moments in time, weight and economic value. As an athlete training 20+ hours per week, I became connected to my mind and physicality to such a degree that my body still remembers the trauma as well as repetitive movements it endured for years. As a result, my art practice incorporates active research as well as elements of my personal identity to represent an active exploration of my present existence – consisting of my own ways of coping and healing traumas that still reside in my body. My work has the intention to break down ideas of physical and mental confinement, cultural hegemony, and giving power to unheard voices – providing a platform to de-stigmatize and break down socially constructed beliefs by externalizing our most vulnerable mental states and traumatic experiences through art.

Through different artistic mediums, I want to share my personal experiences as a Latin American woman, researcher, Olympic athlete, artist and survivor in hope of positively affecting others who have gone through similar experiences. After a lifetime of living in fear, I want to show that you can overcome the adversities in your life by fighting back from darkness to build your own destiny.