XOXO AMMO is a signature I use to protect myself and the work. Sometimes I express ideas that are hard for some audiences to understand. I sign, XOXO because I love the audience, I make paintings for. I dedicate my affection to those that inspire my paintings.
My initials are “AMM.” AMMO is for my father who taught me how to hunt. Ammunition for my mother who gave me a strong first name.
I am AMMO. I was born in brush country on Gloria Anzaldua’s border. It’s her “el cenote” that I paint in trances. I am a “border artist” because I grew up in the borderlands of South Texas and because my paintings take the border and boundaries as their subject. My paintings are a protest to the injustice of violence and militarization of the US/Mexican border.
Today, the U.S.-Mexico border is constantly being misrepresented as a place of danger and violence. But to me the borderlands are home. It’s a place of humanity, solidarity, and compassion. Through painting, drawing, video and performance I invite people to contemplate the beauty that exists in a land where people negotiate their place, where people thrive and struggle, and where people resist the idea of unjust borders.
Andrea Muñoz Martinez Studio