User:Arincon22/Celeste De Luna

[Celeste De Luna] is a printmaker artist known for her works depicting themes of motherhood, globalization, and migration. She aims for her art to validate Latino culture and serve as contributor to the dialogue about art, culture, and politics [2]. Her work integrates personal and collective experiences in the material, spiritual, and supernatural world [3].

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[Celeste De Luna] is a printmaker artist known for her works depicting themes of motherhood, globalization, and migration. She aims for her art to validate Latino culture and serve as contributor to the dialogue about art, culture, and politics [2]. Her work integrates personal and collective experiences in the material, spiritual, and supernatural world [3].

Biography (Early Life and Education)
Celeste De Luna was born in Aurora, Illinois, 40 miles southwest Chicago, where her parents met. She grew up there until she was 8 years old, when she moved to the Valle [1]. She now currently lives in Brownsville and San Antonio, Texas [2], where she works out of her home studio, Metztli Press. De Luna is a self-taught printmaker whose work includes woodcut prints, fabric prints, installations, and press prints [3]. Her work seeks to tease out the intricacies of living in and along the borderlands in her art. However, some of the struggles she has had in conveying her messages are that sometimes nobody cares about her work, but herself and close relatives; so she believes as an artist, most of the joy comes from the process of making the art, which includes the experience [1].

She explores the geo-political aspects of post-911 militarization of her environment [4]. This is portrayed boldly in her pieces Our Lady of the Checkpoint and Chupacabra at Boca Chica Beach. Her use of barbed wire fences, drones, border walls, numerous surveillance cameras, and her play with fantastical creatures as an outlook of anti-colonial sentiments, allow viewers to understand the experiences of women, children, and families [2].

In addition to her artwork, Celeste De Luna is an accomplished home cook, cultural advocate and professor – she teaches Mexican-American studies for Northwest Vista College [3].

Art (Notable Works or Selected Works. Also Exhibitions, Projects, Collections)

 * “Necrocitizen” print was featured on the cover book Fencing in Democracy by Miguel Diaz-Barriga and Margaret Dorsey, published by Duke Press 2020
 * Co-founder of Las Imaginistas, a social engaged art collective
 * A June 2020 Vermont Studio artist in residence
 * Las Imaginistas: recipients of 2017 ArtPlace America Creative Placemaking Grant and 2018 A Blade of Grass Fellows