ASTRID TERRAZAS

The exhibition features ‘La Fuente (para Sydney) (2022)’, a ceramic and tile fountain representative of the way individuals can build and become fountains of giving while still being replenished. The artist’s firsthand experience of how the Rio Grande River was used as a divider when it could have been a connector informs this work—ultimately Terrazas sees the fountain as a self-portrait that functions as a symbol of how we can redirect the power of water and harness it for the many.

Taking the form of painting, illustrated ceramic vessels, and mixed media sculpture, Mexican American artist Astrid Terrazas’ (b.1996) symbolic work rewrites worlds. Her visual language merges dreamscapes, Mexican ancestral folklore, lived experiences, and unearthly transfigurations in her own personal range of recurring motifs that function as artifacts of protection and evoke universal metaphors of transformation. Working in an illustrative, highly detailed style and often adorning her canvases with talismans, charms, and threadwork, Terrazas’ multimedia paintings resemble a visual dream diary full of transient figures, archaic symbols, and illogical narratives. Terrazas describes painting as “a process of finding and burying”, using her coded visual lexicon to deepen the emotional and psychological experience. For Terrazas, painting is akin to incanting: a process of casting spells and weaving new healing narratives to transmute histories.