ARTIST BIO: Vicky Lowe was born in Chiapas, Mexico, and relocated to Salt Lake City, Utah in 2003. She earned her BA in Spanish and a minor in Latin American Studies from the University of Utah, and her Master's in “Advanced Studies in Hispanic and Latin American Literature” from the University of Barcelona. She is an Art and Spanish teacher in Salt Lake City. Vicky has received artist awards and has exhibited her work in various museums in Salt Lake City, at the Centro Cultural Tijuana, Mexico, and many Mexican consulates across the nation.
Vicky’s artistic practice focuses on continuing Indigenous stories, knowledge, and practices. She illustrates the relationship between culture, nature, sustainability, and social justice. She aims to highlight ancestral foods and cultural memories that are part of the diaspora. She enjoys painting with oils, acrylic, paper-making, and collage.
ARTIST STATEMENT: Visual art has been my way to connect with the world around me, an intrinsic relationship with nature and stories. The need to express my thoughts by creating art is innate. It’s a voice that insists on coming out through words, organic lines, shapes, colors, and symbols, saturating spaces with movements, textures, and patterns. From a young age, I taught myself how to paint and create collages in order to convey my world.
My work is highly influenced by my personal history. Growing up as the daughter of a Maya Tseltal mother and a father who worked in archeology, I have experienced various aspects of modern-day and ancient Maya traditions. My maternal grandparents were my first guides in using art as a tool for the preservation of ancestral knowledge. For these reasons my art combines contemporary and ancient Maya visual elements. Memories of the Land explores the connection between food, land, and power through storytelling. The paintings included in this exhibition show how my need to tell stories has become the umbilical cord that connects me to my homeland, my memories, it feeds my spirit as it helps me build community. The central purpose of my art is focused on fighting against the erasure of Indigenous stories. I use art as a platform to amplify the diverse identities of immigrant populations, to highlight the cultures, traditions, and knowledge of the various Maya groups.
