La naturaleza filtrada (2018)
spray paint, house paint, soil and paper
La naturaleza filtrada explores concepts of identity and place. This topographical environment evokes the Southwest and a personal journey through its soil. The border landscape cannot be confined to lines of separation.
The installation began as a reaction to the “zero tolerance” family separation policy. Rice uses spray paint and house paint to depict nonobjective angles of land and water with colors of the desert. Perhaps the blues are the undulations of the Rio Grande and the pinks are smudges of design left behind in the desert by the many feet that cross through her soil. Rice encourages viewers to come into the work from the perspective of a migrant refugee child. The soil has been gathered during a trek across the United States by a first generation American whose parents came from El Salvador and Mexico. Ultimately, the question lingers: What is home? Rice urges viewers to have empathetic conversations about tracing their roots.
Permeable border.
Porous flesh.
Water is my majority.
May the Rio Grande flow through my veins.
Pinky kisses through a wall.
Te amo.
Te amo mucho.
Please don’t live among shadows.
You are children of the light.