A look at the Flora and Fauna Series, 2013
Natalia Anciso was the first in her family to graduate college and attend graduate school. She can also be described as an expecting mother, educator, and important artist making waves on the art scene. In the last few years, she has made lists for the Huffington Post, Latina Magazine, and ELLE for artists to keep your eye on and we took notice.
Although she lives and works from the San Francisco Bay, she is a self described “artist of the Texas borderlands.” Her work not only pays homage to her Mexican roots by utilizing techniques including huipil, or traditional embroidered garments worn by indigenous women from central Mexico and Central America and pano arte, handkerchief art believed to have emerged from Chicano prisoners in the 1940s, but her imagery also references Tejano issues.
In the series, Flora and Fauna, debuted in 2013 at the historic, Xicano/Latinx institution, Galeria de la Raza in San Francisco, Anciso used simple, delicate imagery, beautifully rendered onto household items such as pillowcases, handkerchiefs, and bed linens to illustrate haunting images of poverty, human trafficking, and the effects of Mexican Drug War that currently afflict the area. Both the blossoms and peoples depicted are indigenous to the Rio Grande Valley, South Texas, and Northern Mexico regions.
Are Reading:
Huffington Post- 2014 “13 Young Latina Artists Changing the Contemporary Art Landscape.”
Latina Magazine- 2014 “30 Under 30: The Hottest Latinos to Watch”
ELLE Magazine- 2015 “What does the modern 30-year-old woman look like? The answer is: everything.”