June 6, 2024
Karla Diaz
Wait 'til Your Mother Gets Home
18th Street Arts Center
February 17 - June 22, 2024
Karla Diaz
Karla Diaz has been drawing since she was a child. The title of her current exhibition Wait 'til Your Mother Gets Home is something her aunt would say to her when she would draw on the walls of the family home. Consisting of 37 paintings and works on paper, that when seen together become a personal narrative about the many facets of Mexican American identity. Diaz combines figuration and abstraction to explore and revisit her memories of growing up in Los Angeles. In these compelling works, many of which have the feel of posters from the 1960s, Diaz places flatly rendered portraits and figures into abstracted landscapes and cityscapes. The pieces reference Mexican, as well as Mexican American traditions, in addition to depicting intimate moments with family and friends. The watercolor and ink on paper pieces are illustrative and rendered in vivid colors, whereas many of the paintings have more muted tones giving them a soft, dream-like quality.
On the buildings exterior walls outside the gallery are five colorful large-scale banners: each one a self portrait. One depicts Diaz as Frida Kahlo surrounded by a halo of red roses, whereas in another, Diaz wears a bright blue eye patch. In Self Portrait with Raised Fist she holds an image of a male revolutionary in front of her face. He has a raised fist and is wearing dark sun glasses. Self Portrait with Nopales Ears is more playful. Here, Diaz depicts herself with bunny ears shaped like green cacti.
Moving from exterior to interior, the works become smaller yet have similar impact. Installed in a line along the gallery walls, the images begin to tell a story that weaves through Diaz's life and relationships to familiar locations, be it the 99 cent store, a swap meet, a park or subway interior, or significant moments like when family members crossed the border. In one of the smaller spaces, Diaz presents an installation that pays tribute to the civil rights activist Rubén Salazar who was murdered August 29, 1970 on the day of the National Chicano Moratorium protest against the Vietnam War. Diaz not only paints a watercolor of the Silver Dollar bar, the location of his murder, (The Silver Dollar, 2021) but also includes a separate painting of his bloodied body (Rubén Salazar, 2023).
Diaz's style is quirky and illustrative. Her backgrounds are patch-work splotches or loose gradients of bright color — pinks, oranges, greens and yellows — that serve as the ground for her portraits and other scenarios. The figurative and narrative elements often merge with the background shapes and palette to create a layered effect that is more formal than content driven. Diaz's drawn lines emerge from these color fields to depict people and places with admiration, wit and intensity. For example, in Dona Juana (from the Swap Meet series (2023)), Diaz portrays a woman in front of a stall holding a shoe in one hand and a cell phone with a portrait of a child in the other. Her bright pink shirt is decorated with back to back exotic women with piled black hair, long eye lashes and extended tongues. Dona Juana stares at the viewer and smiles.
No Te Metas Con Mi Cucu (Don’t mess with my ass) (2022)) is an image of protest. Assembled together are portraits of women holding pro-choice signs in front of a court house juxtaposed with a colorful rendition of an older man wearing a suit and pink tie seated in a chair resembling the famous image of Huey Newton. While Diaz allows the forms and figures to overlap, the focus of the image remains intact. Although That Fire (2021) is acrylic on canvas rather than watercolor on paper, the intensity of the moment is deftly portrayed. Diaz tenderly captures the agony and dismay on a woman's face while flames engulf the building behind her. While The Fire is an image of pain and suffering, My Sleeping Beauty (2021) is an image filled with love, as different colored flowers surround a woman, perhaps helping to induce a dream state.
Diaz's seductive images tell personal, as well as universal stories. They are humble without being didactic, colorful and to the point. The pieces are about domesticity, as well as urban life while exploring how the two are interwined. As a Mexican American, Diaz draws from her heritage but also from the world that surrounds her. Her pieces fuse fact and fiction, dreams and reality to create narratives about her experiences growing up and living in Los Angeles.
Wait 'til Your Mother Gets Home
18th Street Arts Center
February 17 - June 22, 2024
Karla Diaz
Karla Diaz has been drawing since she was a child. The title of her current exhibition Wait 'til Your Mother Gets Home is something her aunt would say to her when she would draw on the walls of the family home. Consisting of 37 paintings and works on paper, that when seen together become a personal narrative about the many facets of Mexican American identity. Diaz combines figuration and abstraction to explore and revisit her memories of growing up in Los Angeles. In these compelling works, many of which have the feel of posters from the 1960s, Diaz places flatly rendered portraits and figures into abstracted landscapes and cityscapes. The pieces reference Mexican, as well as Mexican American traditions, in addition to depicting intimate moments with family and friends. The watercolor and ink on paper pieces are illustrative and rendered in vivid colors, whereas many of the paintings have more muted tones giving them a soft, dream-like quality.
On the buildings exterior walls outside the gallery are five colorful large-scale banners: each one a self portrait. One depicts Diaz as Frida Kahlo surrounded by a halo of red roses, whereas in another, Diaz wears a bright blue eye patch. In Self Portrait with Raised Fist she holds an image of a male revolutionary in front of her face. He has a raised fist and is wearing dark sun glasses. Self Portrait with Nopales Ears is more playful. Here, Diaz depicts herself with bunny ears shaped like green cacti.
Moving from exterior to interior, the works become smaller yet have similar impact. Installed in a line along the gallery walls, the images begin to tell a story that weaves through Diaz's life and relationships to familiar locations, be it the 99 cent store, a swap meet, a park or subway interior, or significant moments like when family members crossed the border. In one of the smaller spaces, Diaz presents an installation that pays tribute to the civil rights activist Rubén Salazar who was murdered August 29, 1970 on the day of the National Chicano Moratorium protest against the Vietnam War. Diaz not only paints a watercolor of the Silver Dollar bar, the location of his murder, (The Silver Dollar, 2021) but also includes a separate painting of his bloodied body (Rubén Salazar, 2023).
Diaz's style is quirky and illustrative. Her backgrounds are patch-work splotches or loose gradients of bright color — pinks, oranges, greens and yellows — that serve as the ground for her portraits and other scenarios. The figurative and narrative elements often merge with the background shapes and palette to create a layered effect that is more formal than content driven. Diaz's drawn lines emerge from these color fields to depict people and places with admiration, wit and intensity. For example, in Dona Juana (from the Swap Meet series (2023)), Diaz portrays a woman in front of a stall holding a shoe in one hand and a cell phone with a portrait of a child in the other. Her bright pink shirt is decorated with back to back exotic women with piled black hair, long eye lashes and extended tongues. Dona Juana stares at the viewer and smiles.
No Te Metas Con Mi Cucu (Don’t mess with my ass) (2022)) is an image of protest. Assembled together are portraits of women holding pro-choice signs in front of a court house juxtaposed with a colorful rendition of an older man wearing a suit and pink tie seated in a chair resembling the famous image of Huey Newton. While Diaz allows the forms and figures to overlap, the focus of the image remains intact. Although That Fire (2021) is acrylic on canvas rather than watercolor on paper, the intensity of the moment is deftly portrayed. Diaz tenderly captures the agony and dismay on a woman's face while flames engulf the building behind her. While The Fire is an image of pain and suffering, My Sleeping Beauty (2021) is an image filled with love, as different colored flowers surround a woman, perhaps helping to induce a dream state.
Diaz's seductive images tell personal, as well as universal stories. They are humble without being didactic, colorful and to the point. The pieces are about domesticity, as well as urban life while exploring how the two are interwined. As a Mexican American, Diaz draws from her heritage but also from the world that surrounds her. Her pieces fuse fact and fiction, dreams and reality to create narratives about her experiences growing up and living in Los Angeles.