BIO
Camila Bohan Insaurralde is a painter, interrelated media artist, and community worker. Her work consists of remnants of performance pieces, paintings of reimaged urban landscapes, and installations in both private and public spaces. In her practice, she works through issues of re-remembering a fragmented history and, describing lived experiences as an undocumented American. She also works as a youth arts educator which is a vital influence on her life and work.
STATEMENT
I am an interrelated media artist working in the spheres of sculpture, performance, and painting. My work consists of remnants of performance pieces, paintings of re-imaged urban landscapes, and installations in both private and public spaces. I continually use the motif of a clothesline, cement building materials, and yerba leaves to tie back the material of my work to my lived histories and cultural staples.
My artistic practice is a vehicle to explore re-remembering my personal narrative and identity as an immigrant. In my practice, I work through issues of re-remembering a fragmented history while identifying and describing trauma lived as an undocumented American. I see my paintings as methods to grapple with generational trauma and navigate the double consciousness of residing as a diasporic individual. It is a reaffirmation of being within a constant confrontation against global imperial tendencies to homogenize the lived experiences of immigrants. Many of my performances are collaborations with other femme artists who experience latin and central american interculturalities. Through my work, I embrace the inter-connected threads of identity and strive to tell my story, genuinely, without attempting to fit a mold of what people think a Latinx migrant artist should be.
By reinterpreting past imagery and materials, I simultaneously treat my work as an excavation of emotion and political history. This continual reworking is akin to the reworking of my personal identity as I search through a vernacular history, that informs my practice.