Rosemary Meza-DesPlas, Somewhere Between The Beauty and The Buzz, 2017, Watercolor, hand-sewn thread, hand-sewn human hair on canvas, 21 x 25 in (53.3 x 63.5 cm)
We are thrilled to share that form & concept artist, Rosemary Meza-DesPlas and her award of the $50,000 Latinx Fellowship from the Mellon and Ford Foundations was recently featured in The Albuquerque Journal! Meza-DesPlas is known for her work with performance, textiles and human hair:
The dichotomy of human hair, depending upon context, is it can be engaging or off-putting: long, luxurious hair is sexy, but a hair in one's soup is unappealing.Meza-DesPlas harvests her own hair."I just run my fingers through my hair in the morning," she said. "I was a brunette; now I'm gray. I like the materiality of hair," she continued. "It kind of has a relationship to feminism and ethnicity. It speaks to issues of body image and identity."
Meza-DesPlas harnesses the relationship between materiality and meaning in her works by utilizing human hair and elements of performance in her continued exploration of gender, power, and Latinx identies. She is one of 15 artists awarded the2022 Latinx Fellowship, read the feature in its entirety here!
July 7, 2022
