Moises Salazar Tlatenchi
Region: Midwest
As a non-binary, first-generation Mexican American artist, I am heavily influenced by my lived experiences, cultural upbringing, and the Chicago queer community. Growing up in a traditionally Catholic household, I repressed parts of my identity for the sake of appeasing my family and assuring my survival. As an adult, I have found sisterhood within the queer community. My work is now a place where I can be boldly colorful and loud. My interest lies in fashion, archiving queer nightlife and drag performance, learning traditional Mexican handicrafts, practicing immigration activism, and researching colonial histories. My paintings act as a visual exploration of my concerns as I highlight immigrant and LGTBQIA+ narratives. Through the medium of glitter, a material often stigmatized, I create depictions of queer and immigrant bodies; using my own as a template, I create faceless figures serving as stand-ins for any queer Latinx youth. Using a myriad of embellishments, fabrics, and yarn, the bodies I paint are proudly defiant and become immortalized to combat the erasure of these communities and transform that pain into healing and restorative energy.
