An Immigrant Connection to a Country of Immigrants

Object Details

Artist

Nicolas Amortegui

Date

2016

Medium

mixed media on canvas

Dimensions

48 × 72 × 2 in. (121.9 × 182.9 × 5.1 cm)

Cite As

Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution.

Caption

Nico Amortegui emigrated from Bogotá, Colombia to the United States in the 1990s, eventually settling in Charlotte, North Carolina. In this mixed media painting commissioned for Gateways/Portales, an exhibition on Latinx experiences of migration, the artist sought to create a Latinx-centered artwork that also included his non-Latinx spouse and their children. An Immigrant Connection to a Country of Immigrants features the faces and torsos of three Cubist-style figures, whose asymmetry ranges from differing eye shapes to divergent skin tones. One can imagine the two taller figures as parents flanking a child, the smaller figure appearing under the arch of an American flag. On the left, the peach-skinned parent’s torso contains egg-like shapes. The parent on the right not only has skin tones divided into dark and light, but also two profiles that “face” different directions, akin to an immigrant’s dual, if not multiple, identities and outlooks. With hints of the yellow, blue, and red of Colombia’s flag, a field of red, white, and blue surrounds the family, along with smatterings of stars. The artwork was on display at the Anacostia Community Museum from December 2016 to January 2018.

Accession Number

2017.2.1

Type

painting

See more items in

Anacostia Community Museum Collection

Data Source

Anacostia Community Museum

Restrictions & Rights

Usage conditions apply

Metadata Usage

Not determined

GUID

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/dl8b9de8e8d-3688-49ad-9fa7-ef44e7b678e0

Record ID

acm_2017.2.1