“For Those On The Margins”, 48” x 41”, acrylic and gouache on canvas, 2021
“For Those On The Margins” depicts 41 radial patterns that represent 41 flowers to honor those on the margins. My neighbors living with AIDS/HIV are marginalized. This painting is an offering to them. This painting is from a series I call “chispas” or “sparks.” The starburst patterning is a reflection of my energy and the energy exerted when a spark is made, and the positivity that is created within communities to shield one another from hostility, prejudice, judgement, or daily struggles.
This painting started with one layer of the primary color, blue. I used a number 12 brush to lay down square marks into 41 circular rosettes in a grid of seven by 4, 5, and 6. I used a number 8 brush to lay down rectangles of color in a radial pattern creating the centers of 41 blue and yellow flowers on a gradient bed of pink marks.
My paintings are valentines to my audience. They are my own addition, threads of color, to the fabrics woven by my mother, father, and those that came before them. Weaving history, emotion, and lived experiences; it is a way of preserving the chispas of joys birthed from these lands.
In my paintings, I am able to express a range of emotions through repetitive mark making and resonating, vibrant colors. These paintings are based on principles of color theory, including the “Bezold effect,” an optical illusion, named after a German professor of meteorology, Whilhelm von Bezold, who found that a color may appear different depending on its relation to adjacent colors. I use this understanding of colors to create movement and vibration between small marks of colors in my paintings. Reflecting on a recent conversation with my Tia, who once encouraged me to make paintings with color, paintings of hope. Her advice guided me to find and create Borderlandia as a vibrant, colorful land. I realize now that colors have healing potential.
-Andrea Muñoz Martínez
In April we auctioned off “For Those On The Margins” to benefit Team Bike Curious in the Hill Country Ride for AIDS and our neighbors living with HIV/AIDS.
