Artist Maruca Salazar’s work redefines the nicho market with her droll but pointed assemblies of American and Latino icons.
Who: Maruca Salazar
Medium: Mixed media
Her story: Cordial, with a wide red-lipstick smile and graying blunt-cut black hair, Maruca Salazar comes from a long line of folk artists. She is celebrated for her nichos, box-framed scenes filled with symbols and details balancing the line between social satire and cultural sentiment.
Her studio partner and sometime collaborator is her husband, artist and filmmaker Daniel Salazar, with whom she won the 2005 Denver Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. Among their creations: “Halliburritos” in a filthy Styrofoam chest, recently shown at the Chicano Magic exhibit in Manitou Springs’ Business of Art Center.
She has been with Denver Public Schools since 1979, when she was hired to develop its initial program for students learning English as a second language. In 2001, Salazar left teaching to become the DPS arts coordinator for all the arts disciplines.
“A lot of them were Laotian and Vietnamese and Cambodian children, as well as Spanish-speaking kids, and they were all put together in my classroom,” she said.
“I was asked to teach them everything – all the subjects. Well, my background is in art. So I taught them math, science, English, everything, using my art background.”
Though she has taught at all grade levels, Salazar calls herself “a seventh-grader at heart, which sometimes works well and sometimes gets me in trouble.”
“I’m distracted easily, and I like to do things that are fun and playful, but also have an intensity.”
Philosophy: “My art is thematic, community-based and politically charged,” Salazar said. “For me, art is an aesthetic imperative to create politically charged images.”
The title of one of her artworks is the Spanish axiom “En boca cerrada no entra mosca” – flies won’t enter a closed mouth. It’s a disturbing visual commentary on the violence that many women endure.
“Minority women get the end of the stick most of the time,” she said.
“Latino and minority women have a difficult time because of their demeanor and their accents. But I am hopeful things will change. Someday we will come through with a big broom and really let them have it!”
Among her favorite pieces is the Mujeres (Women) trilogy of three nichos. The first arranges ancient women, including a female kachina doll. The second arrangement includes a Catholic schoolgirl hiding a bottle of booze, a housewife and Salazar’s mother. The third celebrates wild women, including an exuberant circus performer.
Her nichos contrast plastic figures of Barbie dolls and Disney heroines against traditional Latina figures, including the Virgin of Guadalupe (but modified, with a baskets of chiles on her head, and other Latina emblems), and visual references to Mayan and Aztec gods.
“Each piece is about the search for identity and the role we play in the specific context of history,” Salazar said.
“We’re particularly interested in hybrid identity. A lot of times, you get misinterpreted in ethnic-based work, but for us, art is about examining our evolutionary direction.”
Price range: $150 (nichos) to $4,000 (installation)
Where to find her work: Upcoming shows include “Space Invaders,” a 2008 collaboration among local Chicano artists, and artists from Mexico and Central America, opening in January at Museo de Las Americas in Denver.
