Luz Palou García, School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University
Mixed fibers, canvas fabric, paper mâché, paint
From the artist: This is all about feeling. Raw, surreal, disorienting. It’s about existing between worlds: feeling alien, both untethered and tethered, always trying to make sense of belonging. I resist the pressure to disappear. I celebrate weirdness, lead with love, and choose softness in a world that often demands a tough skin. That resistance, to me, is an act of courage. Weirdness, love, and softness are personal mantras. My sensitivity is both my weakness and my greatest strength, as I feel all of this. Through the embodied form of an Alebrije of the Mexican folk art sculptural tradition, I make space to visualize my lived experience and offer a reminder: we are deeply interconnected, even in silence. Hybrid creatures hold both strangeness and familiarity, as well as protection. To inform my work, I have been researching the rich culture of mask-making in Mexico for carnivals, dances, and rituals, and the anthropological role they play in rural communities. We are far more alike than we are different. I’m thinking about the many universal ways we’re made to feel alien in this fabricated human world. We are all weird! My only hope is to get weirder, softer, sillier; to love harder and more fearlessly; and to keep showing up. Take up space. You deserve to. Existence is resistance. See more of my work at luzpalougarcia.com.