veronica a perez

veronica a perez (United States, born 1983), Everything all at once, 2020, Chain link fence, artificial hair, artificial sunflowers, light source, 44 x 45 x 27 inches, Courtesy of the artist 

Sculptor veronica a perez utilizes artificial hair and flowers as well as other kitschy materials that serve as personal and universal commentaries on contemporary Latinx issues.

She explores the hybridization of ancestry, identity and culture as well as the fragile nature of beauty ideals in thought-provoking sculptures.

veronica a perez (United States, born 1983), untitled (i shine), 2020, Artificial hair, artificial sunflowers, bobby pins, light source, 13 1/2 x 15 x 12 inches, Courtesy of the artist 

Since moving to Maine in 2014, Perez has been invested in the artistic community, including curating at Bomb Diggity Arts and serving as a member of the Audience Engagement Committee for Friends of Congress Square Park. She has also authored pieces in The Chart and Black Girl in Maine focusing on sociopolitical issues. Recently, she began working on ideas of ancestry, tracing her familial roots to the Indigenous Tainó people of Puerto Rico.   

Perez continues to investigate Maine’s Latinx community, which she has found to be a suppressed community within Portland. The artist retold stories of a 2004 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid in Maine that removed ten people of mostly Somali and Mexican background to recent acts of discrimination against a Latinx woman picking sunflowers in a local, community garden. This is the backdrop to which Perez creates new work. 

Perez wrote a poem to convey the meaning of her works on view. Note, she uses the spelling of folx, or folks, that is adopted by some communities because it can be used to indicate inclusion of marginalized groups.  

“The ideas about identity and ancestry are complex.
The ideas of identity and ancestry are complex.

When colonization and gentrification take place, colonizers don’t just push people of color out, they also assimilate folx.

Erasure of Identity.

There is grief and loss associated with this death.
The identity.
The mourning of what could have been.
The life that could have been.
Anger comes from this place as well.

This work comes from a painful excavation process that results in permanent hybridized structures -fences, hair, flowers, light.

Fences.
Hair.
Flowers.
Light.

The materials, homogenous to us - yet disconnected by their silence.
Static. Frozen.
Hair growing over, under walls, breaking the substance from within.
Flowers ebbing out, illuminated by a supernatural force.

Authenticity is survival.
Authenticity is power.
Authenticity is liberation. ”
 

veronica a perez (United States, born 1983), Gasping, gasping, 2020, Chain link fence, chicken wire, artificial hair, 46 x 45 inches, Courtesy of the artist 

Watch the March 18, 2021 “Conversations with Maine Artists in a ______ Time” with artists Greta Bank, Celeste Henriquez, Gregory Jamie, veronica a perez, and Giles Timms

 
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“Veronica a perez’s sculptures directly speak to the complexity of human identity, a topic at the center of 2020. With a mixture of a few powerful elements, these sculptures embody both a deeply personal conversation about Veronica’s own identity and a larger conversation about the various human-structures that come to define all of our identities.”

- Cody Castle-Stack, Untitled juror  

EXPLORE MORE ARTWORKS FROM UNTITLED, 2020

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Rachel Church
Rachel Church

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Evelyn Wong
Evelyn Wong

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Charles Schreiber
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veronica a perez
veronica a perez

Sculptor veronica a perez utilizes artificial hair and flowers as well as other kitschy materials that serve as personal and universal commentaries on contemporary Latinx issues. She explores the hybridization of ancestry, identity and culture as well as the fragile nature of beauty ideals in thought-provoking sculptures.

Titi de Baccarat
Titi de Baccarat

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Joshua Reiman
Joshua Reiman

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Eleanor Kipping
Eleanor Kipping

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Celeste Henriquez 
Celeste Henriquez 

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Steve Bartlett
Steve Bartlett

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Ryan Adams
Ryan Adams

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Greta Bank
Greta Bank

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Henry Austin
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Anna Dibble
Anna Dibble

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Deborah Wing-Sproul 
Deborah Wing-Sproul 

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Christopher Dudley
Christopher Dudley

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Rosamond Gross
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Gregory Jamie
Gregory Jamie

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Enrique Mendía
Enrique Mendía

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Meghan Mitchell
Meghan Mitchell

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Elijah Ober
Elijah Ober

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Ashley Page
Ashley Page

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Julie Poitras Santos
Julie Poitras Santos

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Sally Stanton
Sally Stanton

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Giles Timms
Giles Timms

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ARRT! (Artists’ Rapid Response Team!)
ARRT! (Artists’ Rapid Response Team!)

Artists’ Rapid Response Team! (also known as ARRT!) is a collective of year-round members of the Union of Maine Visual Artists (UMVA). UMVA is dedicated to upholding the dignity of artists, while creating positive social change through the arts.

Graeme Kennedyuntitled artists