Rosa Mexicano by Ivonne Yáñez
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 5th, from 6-9 PM
Exhibition Runs: August 5 - September 3, 2023
Rosa Mexicano by Ivonne Yáñez is a journey through various mediums, utilizing dreams as her primary content. Yáñez interprets these dreams through soft sculpture, installation, and painting. Rosa Mexicano (Mexican pink) refers to the name of the color emblematic of Mexico City; the name was inspired by the color of a local flower called Bugambilia that decorates every corner in Mexico City almost year round.
Most of Yáñez’s memories are pictured in pink. The intensity of color in street markets, taxis, houses, and of course, the Bugambilia trees gives her city a pink glow. Blended memories from the rooftop of her house, watching other women washing their clothes at noon, sharing stories about their journeys, going over all kinds of rituals to protect their clothes from the rain, and the aesthetic of the collected pots in corners of every house. From reused plastic bottles to the clothes hanging and dancing in a party of color. This pink makes her feel she is always in a dreamlike atmosphere, a space where the color is not gendered and it is the texture of daily routines.
Rosa Mexicano amplifies distorted proportions that can be experienced while dreaming, things too big or too small, blending memories and traditional objects that belong to Mexican cultures, such as the Milagritos. Yáñez also borrows references from superstitions she has heard since childhood, growing up in Mexico City. Moreover, her work has taken an introspective and emotional charge, altering concepts of impermanence through materiality. It engages themes like memory and archival imagery in atemporal moments.
She draws on her past training as a fashion designer and explores the commonality between her two and three-dimensional creations using texture, shape, and color. Yáñez recreates a dream world through immersive installation that surrounds the viewer in an unfamiliar yet soft and welcoming world. Her pieces are situated in both the past and the present, creating a new story with its own mechanics of time. Yáñez’s imagery ranges from surreal to representational, creating a disorienting yet fantastical experience populated with icons and superstitions from Ivonne’s home and upbringing in Mexico.
Ivonne Yáñez is an interdisciplinary artist and fashion designer from México City. Yáñez completed her Master of Fine Arts from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in May 2023. She has a bachelor's degree in fashion design from the Universidad del Valle de México, México City, and from the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan. Her work has been exhibited at Fresh Eye Gallery, Gallery 148, and Gamut Gallery in Minneapolis and recently at Random Access Gallery at the University of Syracuse. She works with Minneapolis Textile Center as the Program Coordinator of the Mining Mending Exhibition Program and at Interact Center as a Fiber Specialist. From 2018 – 20, her work was focused on fashion media and retail design in Mexico City. Yáñez is currently a Second Shift Studio Space 2023-24 Resident Artist in St. Paul.
