There’s a childlike feeling I get when I walk through the new exhibit by Beatriz Vasquez in the Harrison Gallery. Recuerdos de Papel or Ancestral Memory is a visual wonder—with its large paper butterflies and bright storybook color palette. I recently learned that Vasquez brought her paper creations to the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, and I can imagine the kids’ excitement. I think there’s something encoded in all of us to see paper artworks and think back to childhood days spent hovering over construction paper, making cut crafts, and folding snowflakes. Paper is just so foundational.

*Flor de la Frontera*
Papel picado inspired, paper & glue
4’ x 4’

Vasquez says that paper is the one thing that can be found in every community—no matter how marginal. She herself is Mexican American, Chicana, hailing from a small community on the border of Texas and Mexico. The particular heritage of paper artistry she works from is called Papel Picado: literally “punched” or “perforated” paper. A colleague of mine walked through the gallery and immediately thought of her Abuelita’s kitchen—Papel Picado awakens this kind of cultural memory, with its roots in Mexican folklore. It’s an expected decoration at any Mexican holiday, but its ephemerality makes it difficult to preserve. So, it is fabricated and then, just as quickly, lost to the ravages of time.

*Mama Benitas Jardin Mural*
Paper & Glue

Vasquez knows that her work is delicate, and it is part of what makes a show like Recuerdos de Papel so evocative. The very existence of these artworks in a gallery space asks us to reevaluate what we may have previously considered disposable. The compositions are fragile, but the expectation is that they will be given a long life, and preserved as cultural artifacts.

*Island Coral #3*
Paper & glue sculpture
24’ x 24’

Vasquez’s attention to craft goes without saying. In every swirl of paper, a patchwork story forms. In Paisaje to San Luis Potosi, a bus with the text “automex” drives in the distance on the hills, and in the foreground, flowers blossom, bees, birds, and bugs delight in the saturated world of vibrant colors. Like the geometric patterning of each cutout, Vasquez’s work is surprising in its complex use of perspective and illusion. Working skillfully with a medium like paper, so often seen as disposable, is no easy feat, and Vasquez delivers a show that is brilliant in its aesthetic choices and careful construction.

*Paisaje to San Luis Potosi*
Papel Picado Inspired, paper & glue
4’ x 54”

Vasquez is an artivist: a term that blends artist and activist. Her pieces depict vibrant dreamlands, but it is evident that behind the scenes, she is busy considering realities that are anything but utopian. Vasquez quotes border culture as a theme in her work. She is invested in bringing awareness to the difficulties facing an immigrant person in the U.S. and sees the immigrant's story as being shared, in one way or another, by all U.S. residents—stating that “we are all immigrants in this country.” A show like Recuerdos de Papel, then, is not simply a collection of artworks; it is a statement of presence and a call to recognize and delight in a cultural melting pot. This particular melting pot has never looked quite so colorful and delightful.

*Mexican Petunia en Café Retablo*
Papel Picado inspired, paper & glue
24” x 18” x 2”

See Beatriz Vasquez’s Recuerdos de Papel in the Harrison Gallery through the month of April.