Entrelazados: Justin Favela

In Entrelazados, Guatemalan-Mexican-American artist Justin Favela continues his exploration of notions of identity, place, and authenticity through his signature remixes of popular culture and Latinx experience. At the core of his art practice is an investigation of traditional Mexican or Latin American craft, particularly cartoneria or piñata making, as a way to probe the interwoven influences on personal and collective memory. Creating sculptures and large-scale installations that fuse references to contemporary culture, lived traditions, and art history, Favela adapts familiar materials like cardboard, paper, tape and glue to transform elements of everyday life, effectively reimagining popular culture as a hybrid space that transcends genres and forms, time and space, and collapses any semblance of high and low cultures. 

Born and raised in Las Vegas, Favela’s installations reflect on the consistency of home and inherited tradition in a globalized context, reconsidering classic cultural references – from life-size piñata-style lowriders and dishes of Mexican food, to murals created with layers of tissue paper inspired by José María Velasco’s landscape paintings. They also take on familiar elements of contemporary landscapes, from replicas of iconic Vegas landmarks and historic neon signs to the commercial signage of Latinx businesses found throughout Vegas streetscapes and strip malls. Pivoting the meaning of each work through materials to speak to his own memories and experiences and those of family members, Favela personalizes the visual language of public space to underscore its complexity. 

Entrelazados brings together a number of these pieces as well as new work that the exhibition takes its title from – a site-specific installation in the gallery’s vaulted two-storey space that evokes Guatemalan textiles that historically were hand-dyed, woven, embroidered in Mayan tradition. For Favela, the installation calls attention to material aspects of his own cultural background, but also speaks to relationships with his grandmother and the valuable, often intangible, legacies that shape one’s everyday existence. Referencing indigenous practices shaped by colonialism and globalization, the immersive paper-based work speaks to both ancestral histories and converging collective histories of migration and community. 

Involving community is key to his art practice and the public is welcome to join Justin Favela between 2 – 7 pm on Tuesday, September 3, to participate in a collaborative workshop and contribute to murals that will be part of Favelas’s site-specific immersive installation, Entrelazados. All are welcome; no experience necessary. Children and youth under 16 must be accompanied by an adult. Engaging in collaborations and conversations about art and culture with the broader public is important to Favela’s practice. ‘As a queer person of color working in the United States,” he has said, “I believe that expressing joy, making art accessible, and taking up space can be a political act.”  

The exhibition launch and opening party for Entrelazados will take place at 6 pm on Thursday, September 5. All are welcome; refreshments and cash bar available. 

Created by artist Mango Alvarado, this video is an excerpt of content produced at the opening of Justin Favela: Entrelazados, featuring members of the Latin American community, including both Alvarado and Favela, responding to the artwork Jesús es mi Pastor. The wall installation reimagines a small drawing offered to his Guatemalan grandmother by a child—an image she framed and cherished on her wall. Through his signature piñata technique, Favela has enlarged and transformed the image, infusing it with new meaning. Like much of his work, this piece reflects how objects are often invested with value, becoming symbols or souvenirs that hold personal and communal memory in everyday life.

Alvarado moved to Canada in 2010 from Costa Rica, where he had gained widespread recognition for his video production. Now based in Guelph, Mango writes, acts, directs, and produces his own short films. He has also facilitated Youthopia, an arts program for immigrant youth at the Guelph Public Library, and served as a programmer for Alegria Latina, a Spanish-language show on CFRU 93.3 FM.

Justin Favela, Recuérdame (detail), 2018, paper and glue on wall. Courtesy of Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling. Photo: Michael Palma Mir