Biographical Statement

I was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador and was raised between Ecuador and Jersey City, NJ. In Ecuador I attended a rural school my great grandfather founded and helped with ranch chores and in Jersey City I attended the Visual Performance High School Program at New Jersey City University and began attending pre college programs on scholarship at FIT, NYU, and RISD. In 2015, I graduated with a BFA from RISD and since then have been developing my studio and design practice. I am currently living in Mexico City creating artwork for my upcoming solo at Eve Leibe Gallery in London.

FIGUEROA’S PROJECT:

I am going to utilize my Field Residency space in furthering my research in ancestral heritage of Andean tribes, and creating a series of paintings that further opens conversation about indigenous and Latino identity. Growing up my knowledge of indigenous Ecuadorian and Peruvian culture was limited to the fragments of information passed through family stories and Pre Hispanic sections of New York museums. This limit created a perspective my Native American history was a finished chapter instead of an ongoing story. Today, my aim is to reconstruct scenes, ancestors, rituals of the Inca, Quechua, Paracas, Chachapoya, Moche, Jivaroan, Valdivia and more tribes in the form of painting that would address this misconception and show indigenous persistence amongst Latino immigrant communities in the U.S.

Amongst the five artworks uploaded in my application is a scene of the preparation of Colada Morada, an Andean Pre Hispanic purple beverage made of blue corn flour, spices, and various fruits. It is traditionally consumed on Day of the Deceased, globally known as Day of the Dead, a holiday honoring our ancestors and deceased family members. In the Inca Empire, this important date was celebrated by a ritual in which my ancestors' mummified bodies would be unearthed and brought into homes to be cleaned and share this purple beverage with. Today, we only consume the beverage and eat mummy looking bread. My family’s restaurant would prepare a large amount of the beverage because it was in high demand amongst Andean immigrants in NJ and NY. The experience of witnessing my community's persistence to continue partaking in an ancestral ritual that has survived colonialism and migration is my inspiration for this deeper investigation and documentation.