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UTRGV Master of Fine Arts students SD Kendra Delgado and Juan Delgado debuted their thesis exhibition, “Delgado Dreams,” Thursday in the Charles and Dorothy Clark Gallery at the Liberal Arts Building South on the Edinburg campus.
Displayed across the exhibition were paintings, miniatures, dolls, action figures and clothes all created by the pair.
“We’re both artists. Full disclosure, Juan and I are married,” SD Kendra Delgado said. “So, we were like, ‘Let’s get this MFA degree together.’ We both love art, so he encouraged me to follow through and apply, so we got in.”
As part of MFA graduation requirements, students have to host an exhibition showcasing their work before they graduate.
“You have to ask professors, a minimum of three, to be on your committee. … They give you feedback on anything you need,” SD Kendra Delgado said.
In the process of preparing for the exhibition, the couple was advised by their committee on what themes to explore.
“The main things that they emphasized in our first introduction was play, the concept of play,” Juan Delgado said. “Both of our ideas of what childhood is and was, lifestyle, culture, and even art and education is totally different.”
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SD Kendra Delgado, a Jamaican-American woman, said her work consists of sewing, quilting, embroidery and crafting clothing for Barbie dolls.
“A big part of my work is the concept of archive,” SD Kendra Delgado said. “The women that I saw in my daily life were all educated, they all had jobs and they were either professors or doctors or lawyers. … Those women also collected Black Barbies.”
SD Kendra Delgado said she wanted to incorporate her relative’s histories into her art. The textile portraits displayed in the exhibition had accompanying Barbies with hand-stitched matching outfits.
Juan Delgado’s pieces differed in subject matter and medium.
“We grew up migrant farm workers, we traveled all the time. So, we didn’t have a set home to collect things to think about current events or fashion or trends or none of that,” Juan Delgado said. “As a child, one of the things I was exposed to or found in a garage that I could hold onto was a Hot Wheels that fit in my pocket … [It was] a grounding figure. So, that bit has been my focus, when I started the program, revisiting that.”
Displayed across the exhibition were miniatures and dioramas featuring the Hot Wheels Juan Delgado spoke of, all inspired by photographs his mother took of their travels, he said.
“So, recreating that through dioramas, I re-explore my identity, my culture, and how I grew up and how I identify now in the society with my experience and what I’m learning, not just in the program, but with my wife, SD, and her experiences,” Juan Delgado said.
Kayla Martinez/THE RIDER
When asked what she wanted people to take away from the exhibition, SD Kendra Delgado replied she wants people to understand the choice to “honor the daughter.”
“That’s one of the new academic theories that’s caught on recently … to make sure that your daughter is educated and has what she needs to have a very Barbie type of lifestyle, where she has her own material possessions, her own income,” she said. “That is what’s being honored in my work, because my family made that choice with my grandma, my mom, my aunts and then with me.”
According to SD Kendra Delgado, the message being honored in her work contrasts Juan Delgado’s work, because unlike her, he is a first-generation college student.
“That is why I want the audience to take a bit of my experience and reflect on their own, and mirror those experiences and reflect on the possibilities that are available,” Juan Delgado said. “Not just being first [generation] here in the Valley… there are possibilities, and you can make them happen.”
The “Delgado Dreams” exhibition will be on display in the Charles and Dorothy Clark Gallery through Oct. 23.
For more information, visit @utrgvgalleries on Instagram.
