Gabriella Sanchez, S.W.A.K., 2021
Gabriella Sanchez, S.W.A.K., 2021
Gabriella Sanchez
S.W.A.K., 2021
Serigraph, Edition of 60
Paper Size: 30x22 in.
Image Size: 23x18 in.
This print was conceived as a collaboration between my father, who passed in 1999, and me. I see this collaboration of sorts as both processing grief and a form of continuing a relationship, an especially poignant theme during this last year of considerable collective grief. To create this print, I photographed items (birthday cards, books, drawings, etc.) that my father either sent me while he was in prison or were his treasures during those times. The title, S.W.A.K., an acronym for "sealed with a kiss," is on the envelope seal of a birthday card he sent me. The print symbolizes the effort to maintain a connection through great separation or distance - prison then and now death. Hopefully, this collaborative print made with ephemera also embodies a potential to maintain a relationship with our loved ones who have passed, as I truly believe that is possible, and the power of collectively processing grief with our community.
Maestrxs Atelier:
This Maestras Atelier is made of a wide range of artists from seasoned to emerging and with varying experiences in screen-printing from well versed to new to the medium. The artists were chosen for the bold attitudes displayed in their creative practices. It was the intention of this atelier to highlight those voices and their thoughts in this strange time of rethinking our lives and creative practices. Because of the pandemic, these artists have all worked with SHG in varying capacities to complete a screenprint for the Maestras Atelier.
Artist Bio:
Sanchez prompts the audience to reconsider the vantage point from where they are observing—as Americans, as cultural consumers, as members of ethnic groups, as singular individuals. Her compositional collage paintings operate like vibrant, sprawling puzzles: seemingly disparate elements all existing on the same plane; pieces composed of type, form, and color—a nod to Sanchez’s background in graphic design. Sharpie tags are scrawled alongside painted sleek Helvetica fonts, prompting the audience to name what is unspoken. Referencing a wide-range of iconic texts and visual works including Ed Ruscha and Oscar Wilde, Sanchez abstracts and remixes well-known signifiers with more mundane objects like flowers, street lamps, and traffic arrows. The paintings reframe visual cues, reconsidering how meaning is crafted, delivered and then received. By utilizing text in the work, the paintings may be perceived as proclamations, affirmations, or sly remarks. Playful or derisive, Sanchez treats the ambiguity of her marks as psychographics: revealing truths about the viewer themselves.
Sanchez’s work takes us to a threshold state of being, a liminal space outside of prescribed dichotomies. Here in this place, meaning is remixed, renegotiated, remade, and made real.