Margaret Vega
I am a multi-disciplinary artist rotating between bodies of work to consider persistent questions. My current work is about query: validity and hierarchy in recording the human story, my story. As an observer/maker, I am interested in the history of the crayon labeled Flesh. Using symbolism as a layer between what is and what could be, Color Me Flesh series combines my experience as a painter with sculpture and mixed media. The viewer serves as a comparative element, the medium questioning the boundaries invented to divide us into “otherness”; responsible for the decision: Can we ever be flesh neutral? Are we still counting? As a Latina who grew up using the Flesh crayon, I am inspired by the pre-colonial Inka language of Khipus and historical documentation with a fixed lens based on skin color resulting in Damnatio Memoriae. These vignettes of query follow two previous bodies of work, oil on canvas: Stone Angels: Perpetual Order and Icarus, Dreams Deferred. My work engages “dinergy”, the energy that transforms discrepancies into harmony by allowing differences to complement each other through the power of proportions that unite, letting each part preserve its own identity. This greater pattern is most obvious in nature which is present in much of my work. My new mixed media work includes the study of polychrome and its colonial projection on classical Roman sculpture, artifacts to memorialize or eradicate history. Dinergy is most obvious in the balance of nature which is implied or described in all of my work by image or materiality. For me, the landscape, stone angels, blackboards, storytelling and artifacts all overlap in their references and association to explain, validate, and question.