Aida Lizalde – Vessel / Fountain

Axis Gallery presents Vessel / Fountain, a solo exhibition with recent works by Aida Lizalde composed of paper pulp works and mixed media sculptures dealing with power structures and exploring the idea of cultural identity and neo-colonialism through narrative and symbolism. The works included are illustrating the ambiance of her bi-national experience and fragmented identity caused by the racial and political conflicts of the United States, the nostalgia and separation of her childhood in Mexico, and the manifestation of a post-structural existence in her personal life.

Vessel / Fountain includes works made of paper pulp, some referencing American quilts, which were traditionally made with recycled fabric from olf garments, forming decorative patterns that are intricate and geometric. In those works, created while at a residency at Casa Lu in Mexico City, Lizalde incorporates local flowers to invoke calico fabrics, newspaper clippings that show fragments of news about Mexican-American relations in politics and economy, appropriated wheatpaste artwork form the streets of Mexico as well as folk art imagery

Aida Lizalde is a Mexican multimedia artist based in Northern California. She obtained a Bachelor of Art in Studio Arts and Minor in Art History from the University of California Davis. She uses her artwork to raise questions about power structures and explore cultural identity through narrative and symbolism. She invites the viewer to consider and empathize with the struggle of navigating the immigration system, the process of assimilating to American culture, and the nuances of having an identity that is continuously shaped by capitalism, neocolonialism, and politics. 

Her work has been exhibited at Chandra Cerrito Contemporary, Torrance Art Museum, Southern Exposure, Gearbox Gallery, the Museum of Northern California of Chico, the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Beacon Project Sacramento, SOMArts South of Market Cultural Center, The Latino Center of Art and Culture of Sacramento and has been a recipient of the Vermont Studio Center Fellowship, Young Space Grant, the Hopkins Endowment for Studio Art Students, the Crocker Kingsley Art Award, and the Herb Alpert Scholarship for Emerging Young Artists among others.