Uprooting: Paths of Belonging
Artist Bio
Angeles Salinas was born in Mexico City in 1972. She was trained at an early age by various artists, including the famous Mexican aquarellist Alfredo Güati Rojo. These teachings served as a foundation for what has become a passion and a professional path.
Angeles is an MFA candidate from UTSA for Spring 2024. She holds two bachelor’s degrees; she graduated Summa Cum Laude in Fine Arts at UTSA in 2020. Previously she graduated with honors as a Graphic Designer from the Universidad Iberoamericana in 1996.
In 2015, Angeles moved to San Antonio to pursue a BFA at UTSA. Her dual roles as an artist and single parent have been quite a challenge. She has been awarded several times for educational excellence with the James C. Elmore II Memorial Scholarship (2016), the President’s List (2017-2020), The Academy of Undergraduate Research Associates (2019), and the Wai Ching Lam Art Prize (2019). She has also participated in multiple group exhibits in Texas, including the 10th Annual Texas Juried Exhibition 2023 at Artspace111, Fort Worth, TX, where she was awarded an Honorable Mention, the Emerging Latin Artists 26: Histories of Transformation / Historias de Transformación, at the Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin, TX., and the 35th Annual Juried Student Exhibition, juried by Bill Fitz Gibbons, from the Department of Art and Art History at UTSA, where she earned the Best in Show award, among multiple other exhibitions.
Angeles’s long-term goal is to become part of an artists’ collective that bridges the respective art communities of Texas and Mexico. She would like to help women of all ages feel empowered with her work. She considers that there are still not enough women artists in the art world, and she would like to contribute to their number with her work.
Artist Statement
My artwork expresses the permanent dialog occurring in the psyche of a middle-aged Mexican ex-patriate. “Uprooting” depicts a cumulus of experiences and life occurrences that continuously steer the personal path toward eventful situations that modify the perception of the self. It is a search for the self through the examination of statements of faith, a sense of displacement, beliefs of belonging, ideas of existence, and acceptance of the human condition. Juxtaposed images and ideas pursue balance for experienced concepts like life vs. death, faith vs. despair, and innocence vs. corruption. Fetishism is embedded in the materials chosen for the work. The ritualistic mechanics of working with these materials evoke a nostalgic reminiscence of my childhood, Mexican heritage, and domesticity. The mixture of elements helps the artwork achieve, at first glance, a whimsical feeling, which yields to an emergence of the dire under-layered content that is constantly searching for belonging. The realization of meaning proves to be more irreverent and biting than innocent. My artwork is not only denunciatory—solutions are presented within. Balance is pursued with nurturing and creative power from the female perspective.
