User:Jm770/Dalila Paola Mendez

Dalila Paola Mendez is an Indigenous, Guatemalan, Salvadorian, and Queer multimedia artist known for her use of vibrant colors as well as her subject matter of dealing with womanhood, queer identities, resilience, the environment, and the importance of elders and ancestral sacred knowledge in her artwork. She works in printmaking, photography, film, and painting. Mendez often combines the contemporary with the ancient to explore the past as a way to navigate the issues Indigenous peoples and people of color face in the contemporary world. Her artwork also is known for elder veneration and the celebration of the dark Goddess woman.

Biography (Early Life, Education, and Career)
Dalila Paola Mendez grew up in Los Angeles, California. She grew up in an multi-ethnic household and a multi-racial community in Echo park. Mendez was also raised in a multi-generational household and growing up in a diverse environment and having a grandmother that was heavily involved in her upbringing informs her artwork and is part of the reason why she depicts what she does today. Her knowledge and a lot of her inspiration for her work comes from her grandmother, who instilled in her, the ways of the past. Her identity as a darker skinned woman also is the reason that she often celebrates the dark Goddess woman and often depicts women of darker skin complexions. Barnsdall Art Park is accredited by Mendez for igniting her love for painting and photography in her youth.

Mendez received her Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from the University of Southern California. She became a teacher and taught at LAUSD for three years, until in 2001, she became a substitute teacher and started to spend her time working in film, as a production designer. Mendez declares that it was the year 2015, in which she officially made art her full time job. In 2015, she was 1 of 5 artists selected to create a print in Havana, Cuba as part of a Printmaker’s Exchange between American and Cuban artists. While in Cuba, Mendez was inspired by the artists there, who often lacked supplies and relied on their innovation to create art, to push her artwork forward and to make a living off of it. In 2018, Mendez was awarded an Artist in Residence Grant through the City of LA, Dept. of Cultural Affairs.