A detailed black-and-white print showing a stylized figure operating a makeshift motorized raft or airboat on a river. The man wears a decorated helmet with thin antennas or feathers extending from the top, and he holds a long wooden pole to navigate. The boat is retrofitted with car wheels on the side, a gas tank labeled "TANKE DE GAS," and a smoking engine exhaust pipe at the back. The front bow of the boat is shaped like a giant rooster's head, holding a small sign in its beak.

Leading the Camino: Latinx Art by Juan de Dios Mora and Consuelo Jimenez Underwood

Artist Project Space

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Juan de Dios Mora, Leading the Camino (Leading the Road), 2011. Linocut, 22 x 30 inches. Museum purchase with funds provided by Isaac and Eleanor Ayala, Elizabeth D. Moyer, PhD., and Michael D. Powanda, PhD. 2017:16.2

The exhibition Leading the Camino: Latinx Art by Juan de Dios Mora and Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, features prints and textiles by Mora and Jimenez Underwood that question borders and embrace living in the “borderlands.” Mora adopts figuration and humor to resist homogenization and contest political rhetoric that criminalizes immigrants. He employs Spanglish and popular motifs such as piñatas, luchadores masks, and Mesoamerican iconography to reflect his lived experiences and connect cultures across time and space. In his print Leading the camino Maya and Aztec symbols are juxtaposed with tacos and technology exemplifying Gloria Anzaldúa’s notion of the borderlands or sites where a variety of traditions, languages and ways of being come into contact, overlapping and interacting, to nourish and inform each other. Jimenez Underwood embraces textiles to similarly cross borders and honor her hybrid identity as Chicana, Mexicana, Americana, Indigenous, woman, and artist. Her artworks bridge art and craft to examine geo-political barriers and weave together bodies and traditions from past and present.

The exhibition is curated by Dr. Adriana Miramontes Olivas, Curator of Academic Programs and Latin American and Caribbean Art.

Selected Artworks from the Exhibition

A highly detailed black-and-white linocut or woodcut print depicting a surreal space scene. An astronaut with a mustache sits in a mechanized craft floating above the curved horizon of the Earth against a star-filled sky. The craft features an elaborate circular wheel at the back adorned with Aztec or Mayan calendar glyphs and banners reading "PA' ARRIBA PA' ARRIBA." The vehicle stands on robotic legs with rocket thrusters built from everyday items like a hairdryer and a flashlight, blasting streams of fire into space. A banner sweeping below reads "este mundo nunca se acaba."
Juan de Dios Mora, Futura nave espacial Maya del 2012 (Future Mayan Spaceship of the Year 2012), 2011. Linocut, 30 x 22 inches. Museum purchase with funds provided by Isaac and Eleanor Ayala, Elizabeth D. Moyer, PhD, and Michael D. Powanda, PhD. 2017:16.1
A black-and-white print featuring a man riding a large bull down a dirt trail strewn with trash and debris. The bull wears a large cowbell around its neck and is yoked to a heavy wooden beam that balances two metallic buckets on either side. Rising from behind the rider is a tall wooden staff decorated with various cultural icons, including a flag with a sports crest, a long banner depicting the Virgin of Guadalupe, a soccer ball helmet labeled "GAS," and a coiled jack-in-the-box toy. To the right, a tall border fence topped with barbed wire and watchtowers stretches into the distance beneath a dark, swirling sky where a lone helicopter flies.
Juan de Dios Mora, Con todo y tiliches se aventura a la tierra prometida (On Board and Headed to the Promised Land with Everything and Junk), 2009. Linocut, 30 x 22 3.8 inches. Museum purchase with fund sprovided by Isaac and Elanor Ayala, Elizabeth D. Moyer, PhD., and Michael C. Powanda, PhD. 2017: 16.3
A dynamic black-and-white print depicting a woman in a spacesuit flying through a starry outer space environment. She is hooked into a complex, retrofitted jetpack assembly that fires multiple exhaust streams downwards. Extending from her rig are mechanical arms holding interstate highway shields that read "NORTH 35" and "SOUTH 35," alongside adjustable work lamps that illuminate her path. She holds a T-handle tool in one hand and a screwdriver in the other, shouting with an intense expression. Attached to the bottom of the jetpack is a tank labeled "HEAVY FREIGHT."
Juan de Dios Mora, Ni los comets son tan rápidos como mis rockets (Not Even Comets are Faster than My Rockets), 2011. Linocut 39 x 24 inches. Museum purchase with funds from Michael C. Powanda and Elizabeth D. Moyer. 2022:38.2
A wide, panoramic black-and-white print illustrating a chaotic roadside scene. On the left, a shirtless man is driving an unconventional vehicle composed of a car chassis and a large spoked wheel through mud or water, with a banner nearby that reads "wa cha te'." The center features a dark, vintage car with "Loco" written on the side door. On the right side of the road, a group of farm animals—including a chicken, goats, a donkey, and a small pig pushing a cart—are gathered near a roadside sign. In the background, a flat landscape houses small buildings under a dark, highly textured sky.
Juan de Dios Mora, Carruchas de lujo (Luxurious Car), 2009. Linocut, 12 x 30 in. Museum purchase with funds from Michael C. Powanda and Elizabeth D. Moyer. 2022: 38.3
A textile art piece hanging on a white wall, composed of six vertical woven panels of dark, textured brown fabric. Scattered unevenly across the panels are numerous small, irregular patches of vibrant orange and red fiber pieces, giving the impression of floating autumn leaves or glowing embers drifting across a dark background.
Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, Broken: 13 Undocumented Birds, 2021. Wire, linen, cotton, and metallic threads, 70 x 47 in. Image courtesy of the artist and Ruiz-Haley Art.
A textile art installation presented in three horizontal rows on a white background. Each row is split into two uneven rectangular sections, creating a fractured appearance. The top row is woven in bright, textured shades of yellow with a dark, branch-like line running horizontally through it. The middle row features shades of light and medium green with a prominent reddish-brown horizontal band reminiscent of barbed wire. The bottom row consists of darker, earthy olive greens with a muted cream-colored horizontal band running across it.
Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, American Foods: Corn, Bean, Squash, 2019. Cotton fabric, natural and synthetic fibers, leather barbed wire, safety pins, buttons, and glass beads. 63 x 45 in. Image courtesy of the artist and Ruiz-Healy Art.
A vertical mixed-media textile art piece. The top portion features a wide, rectangular band of coarse, woven golden-brown fiber decorated with a large, abstract blue and purple shape reminiscent of a bird or an insect. The main lower section consists of a quilted, shimmering green fabric stitched with grid lines. Layered over the green backing are embroidered yellow outlines of continents, abstract shapes resembling yellow footprints, and a large, textured mountain-like form in shades of green and yellow that dominates the upper half, framed by dark red branch-like patterns in the top corners.
Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, Undocumented Nopal. 2525 AD, 2019. Silk and cotton fabric. Linen, Kentucky barbed wire, cotton and synthetic thread. 70 x 48 in. Image courtesy of the artist and Ruiz-Healy Art.