Printmaking graduate student Sandra Vega‘s exhibition title, Caminos de Identidad, she writes, is best translated as “A Search for Identity.” Vega presented her Master of Arts thesis exhibition March 1-12, 2021, in the Sella-Granata Art Gallery.
As the daughter of Salvadoran immigrants, an “anchor baby,” and a first-generation college student, Sandra Vega feels that she has been expected to be the embodiment of strength. And yet, she writes that she is drawn to the idea of vulnerability and to depict it in her current artwork, primarily prints and ceramics. “My work displays a physical and metaphorical representation of vulnerability illustrated through various insects and wounded bodies. The crushed insects and wounded characters are projections of myself; they are extended self-portraits of my personal struggle with having to face and accept my own vulnerability and search for identity…My imagery displays the balance between resilience and vulnerability as the unidentified characters show no reaction through their body language despite their wounds and what may be occurring around them.” Vega is a graduate teaching assistant at UA. She holds a BFA from the University of Texas of the Permian Basin, Odessa. Vega assisted in the NEA-funded program Pots-n-Prints mobile studio (featured in the Washington Post), which traveled to rural areas in west and southwest Texas, teaching students silkscreen printing, etching, and ceramics.
View an online exhibition of her MA exhibition here.
For more information about The University of Alabama’s programs in art history and studio art, visit our Degree Programs page.