User:Jaoro93/Cristina Cardenas

Cristina Cardenas (born 1957) is a Mexican American painter, printmaker, and lithographer known for creating artworks that disassemble stereotypes, disseminate empowerment amongst Mexican and Chicana women, and introduce cultural pride throughout Mexican and Chicane communities across both sides of the border. She has become widely acknowledged for her utilization of amate for several of her creative paint pieces.

Early life and education
Cristina Cardenas was born in 1957 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. As a young girl, she expressed considerable enthusiasm for drawing and painting, rather than playing with dolls or attending familial festivities. This early artistic engrossment developed into a permanent commitment. And in her adolescence, Cardenas became an apprentice to Francisco Caracalla and Jorge Martínez, both longtime assistants to acclaimed Mexican muralist, José Clemente Orozco. Soon after, she graduated from the University of Guadalajara with a Bachelor's Degree in Painting. Nevertheless, she aspired to further her professional career by any means necessary. Thus, she ultimately migrated to Tucson, Arizona in the mid-1980s. After some time in the States, Cardenas earned her Master's Degree in Printmaking from the University of Arizona in 1990, just one year after becoming an American citizen.

Art
Cardenas' work has long been marked by numerous personal and powerful elements, most of which include pre-Columbian symbolism from Aztec and Mayan traditions—a tribute to her country of birth, Mexico. In addition to portrayals of women in leading and liberating roles and positions. To do this, she often depicts the women in her paintings as central characters with big feet and hands to signify strength. Moreover, Cardenas is no stranger to creating more politically-focused artworks. She shares, "One of my worries as a professional artist is that my art has to represent my culture, you have to express your community, its problems, and its strengths." As such, concerns regarding immigration and immigration legislation have taken precedence across many of her paintings.

Awards, collections, and residencies
In a career that spans more than three decades, Cristina Cardenas has received a number of significant distinctions. She has been awarded with the Caversham Press and Educational Trust and the Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Award. Her work has also been in held in the special collections of several museums and universities like UCLA, the University of Notre Dame, and the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, Illinois. Cardenas herself has also maintained residencies at the Claude Monet Museum and Garden in Giverny, France and the Africa Program for the Hourglass Project: A Woman Vision in Caversham, South Africa.

Group exhibitions

 * 2020 – Unapologetic: All Women, All Year. Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA), Scottsdale, Arizona.
 * 2015 – Collecting for the Twenty-First Century. Northern Arizona University Art Museum, Flagstaff, Arizona.
 * 2015 – YWCA's Frances McClelland Community Center. Tucson, Arizona.
 * 2008 – Latina/o Images for the 21st Century: Interethnic Relations and Politics of Representation in the United States. Bielefeld University, Bielefled, Germany.
 * ALAC Latina Art Exhibit. Arizona Latino Arts and Cultural Center, Phoenix, Arizona.