About Tlisza

TLISZA JARIQUE

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Tisza Jaurique is a Mexican/Latinx multidisciplinary artist, scholar, and educator. She uses her inherited indigenous upbringing and aesthetics intertwined with her background in Philosophy as a foundation for her artistic practice. Her work addresses the philosophical concepts of change, language, hermeneutics, power and decoloniality. She is best known for her intricate paintings and installations using glitter and mirrors.
She has a B.A. in Philosophy from Vassar College. She has a Master’s in Art Education from ASU and continued with her Doctoral studies in Education in Curriculum/Instruction.

She teaches, lectures and builds curriculums in Studio Art, Art History, Philosophy, World Religions and History with special emphasis on Native American Cultures, past and present.

She has consulted, exhibited, lectured and worked with the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, the Smithsonian Latino Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (she was the first Mexicana/Xicana to exhibit at the Met), David Rockefeller Center for Latino Studies at Harvard, the Latino Cultural Center at Yale University, Hispanic Research Center at ASU, Notre Dame Center for Latino Studies, Nelson Fine Arts Museum, JP Getty Education Institute, Museo del Barrio, Taller Puertorriqueña, etal.

She received the prestigious Community Scholar Award from the Smithsonian Native American Awards Program at the National Museum of Natural History. She was a resident scholar and visiting artist for the Southwest Borderlands Initiative Chicana/o Studies Department at ASU. She received the Artists’ Fellowship Grant. In 2020 she was the recipient of the NDN Collective Artist Grant and the United States Artist Grant.

Her art work has been included in four volumes of Mexican American Chicana/o Art published by the Bilingual Press, the Aztlan Journal of Chicano Studies UCLA, Taken: Iconography and Intent in Contemporary Latino Art, published by Taller Puertorriqueña and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

ABOUT THE MURAL

From the Annals of the Codex Naguatika, 2021

From the Annals of the Codex Naguatika is a mural tribute to the flora and fauna that contribute to La Barca, a conceptual mixing of desert and sea environs. Jaurique finds inspiration for her work using the pictorial language of Mesoamerican cultures.

The Rabbit and the Moon

In Mesoamerican cultures, rabbits are associated with the Moon. There is a rabbit figure seen in the shadow part of the moon in this icon.

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Mayahuel

Mayahuel, Goddess of the Maguey. The Maguey plant is a genus of the agave and is from where tequila, mezcal, and pulque come from. Mayahuel is a goddess associated with fertility, fecundity, and nourishment–there are/were medicinal aspects of the aforementioned alcoholic drinks. In the mural She is intricately connected to the maw of the earth goddess. Rabbits are Mayahuels “children”.

Agave

The Maguey plant belongs to the Agave family, and was/is an important plant for Mesoamerican cultures. Among its many uses, Tequila, Mezcal, and Pulque are made from it.

Camazotz

Bats are essential to the pollination of the maguey plant, from whence mezcal and tequila come. The Mexican long nose bat, the lesser long nose bat and the long tongue bat evolved with the maguey plant. Both rely on the other for sustenance and proliferation. Bats were also important deities and figures in Mesoamerican cultures. Seen here, they are singing and dancing in the night wind.

Octopus

8 arms, 8 hidden talents. Inspired by Moche

Humpback Whale

Who’s not excited about Humpacks in the Hudson?

The Sun

Hooray for photosynthesis!

The SunMoonEclipse

Night and Day depicted by half a Moon and half a Sun

MORE OF TLISZA’S WORK…