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Two new exhibitions have opened at the Centro de Artes Gallery, at San Antonio's Market Square.
The exhibit showcases Texas family homes and Mexican American folktales to underscore elements of South Texas culture.
The curator for the first-floor exhibit, "Madre Land: South Texas Memory & the Art of Making Home," Bonnie Cisneros, said the exhibit space is divided like the rooms of a house.
“The idea just suited it so perfectly. I have a front porch,” Cisneros said. “We have the kitchen. We have a living room, dining room, bedrooms. We have a chicken coop, and we have backyard shrines or nichos for our yard.”
Contributing to this exhibit across both floors were 139 artists. They were given a lot of leeway.
Part of the instructions for them was, “Do the thing that you've always wanted to do. So why not dream big individually?” said Cisneros.
Many elements from these artists’ work seem like something from a lot of houses in San Antonio.
“Just remembering it is honoring it,” Cisneros said.
Rebecca Gomez curated Centro’s second-floor exhibit, "Cuentos y Arte: Mexican American Folk Tales of the Southwest." She asked artists to focus on the tales that San Antonians have told their children and youth of the community.
“And oftentimes, the oral traditions, they get passed down, sometimes they don't even get documented,” she said.
“The theme up here is Mexican American folk tales. Bedtime stories. Oftentimes those stories are spooky about the boogeyman, La Llorona,” Gomez said.
Artist Hailey Marmolejo said she was raised hearing those stories.
“These are all tales that I was told as a kid, but I kind of did my best to change the narrative a bit and flip it and kind of make it more empowering for women.”
Marmolejo hasn’t been exhibited here before. “I feel really great about it, and it's so good to see all the work together in the space," she said.
The exhibit will be up through February, and entry into Centro de Artes is free.
