Luis Valderas
Mariachi Nation
El Mariachi Lacho Series is an ongoing body of digital photo-collage mixed media works in which I use the image of my father, Horacio Sanchez Valderas, dressed in his 1930’s mariachi outfit as an icon and alter ego. Through him I represent the Mexican-American hero navigating modern abstract arrays of socio-political structures and landscapes. He is the epic figure that I use to make commentary based on my reinterpretation of contemporary socio-political issues.
digital collage from urban site installation 2013
digital collage from urban site installation 2013
digital collage from urban site installation 2013
low relief sculpture, styrofoam sheeting, latex, paper 2014
digital collage from urban site installation 2013
digital collage from urban site installation 2013
digital collage from urban site installation 2013
digital collage from urban site installation 2013
Armed with multiple images of various sizes mounted on foam core matt board I find compositions present in the mundane settings of everyday life that present the opportunity for me to challenge the perspective of the viewer and temporarily create a landscape. I then place the photo-cutouts of my father into these guerrilla style urban-site-specific installations to form the basis of photographs, prints, mixed media paintings, and video. These installations exist in reality for only the time it takes for me to install and photograph. I then strike the installation and move on to find the next site.
The additional patterns, design elements, and details of the compositions and narratives are based on Meso-American icons, glyphs, myths and design sensibilities. By hybridizing these images (the already existing surface compositions such as billboards, advertisements, street wall graffiti, train boxcars, the glyph patterns, and the mariachi photo-cutout) I create a dissonance of reality as well as a new landscape and time frame challenging the viewer to reconsider their position.