Enrique Chagoya

The paintings and prints of artist Enrique Chagoya include secular, popular, and religious symbols that speak to the changing nature of culture and the disparity that exists between the United States, Latin America, and the world at large. Influenced by his experiences living on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border and in Europe, Chagoya's work addresses topics such as colonialism and oppression in contemporary American foreign policy. "My artwork is a conceptual fusion of opposite cultural realities that I have experienced in my lifetime," the artists says, "I integrate diverse elements: from pre-Columbian mythology, western religious iconography and American popular culture." In the artist's color lithograph, Fantasylandia: An Illegal Alien's Survival Guide, an accordion-codex incorporating comic-book stylistic techniques, images of historical Mexican beliefs and myths about death are paralleled with a mystical Quetzalcoatl—plumed serpent—as well as dolphins and birds.