michelle peraza

Writing for works by Claudia Arana:​

for Olga, bole (clay) on amate/amatl, linen thread dyed in soy milk, tamarind, coffee, jadeite beads, 65'' x 60'', 2025​

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for Olga II, bole (clay) on amate/amatl, linen thread, 60'' de diamètre, 2025

The title for Olga reference a family connection, situating the works within a network of relationships that anchor the artist’s practice in both intimacy and cultural ancestry. Amate/amatl paper, an Indigenous material long connected to resilience and resistance, becomes the surface on which the artist layers her work. Here, bole (a clay historically used in painting and gilding) intertwines with plant-based dyes such as tamarind and coffee, and with jadeite beads, a stone honored across Mesoamerica. The use of hand-cut amate and linen thread dyed with soya milk continues this material dialogue, extending its textures into a circular form suggestive of cycles and continuities evoking mesoamerican cosmologies. Together, the two works embody the artist’s interest in transculturation and hybridity, where ancestral materials and contemporary gestures converge. They resonate with cosmologies, memory, care, and the in-between spaces carrying the imprint of place while opening onto broader conversations about belonging, resilience, and the ways identity is woven through land, body, and relation.​

sol y moon, 23k gold leaf, genuine silver leaf, synthetic sinew, silk thread, linen thread, Beam's paints on amate/amatl, and Indian linen dyed with cochineal and lac, 72'' x 78'', 2025

In this work, cochineal pigment embodies both ancestral knowledge and colonial entanglement. Derived from the Dactylopius coccus insect, cultivated for centuries on prickly pear cacti in Mexico and Central America, cochineal produces the brilliant carmine red that became one of the most coveted commodities of the Spanish colonial empire. Honored by Indigenous peoples for its vibrancy and ritual use, the pigment was violently absorbed into systems of extraction, trade, and domination. The artist’s use of cochineal reactivates this layered history. Its crimson tones bear witness to the persistence of Indigenous knowledge, the violences of empire, and the survival of cultural memory. By reclaiming cochineal, the artist frames pigment as a decolonial gesture that affirms continuity while transforming histories of extraction into spaces of remembrance. The sun and the moon, recurring motifs in Michelle’s work, are tied to precolonial cosmologies that see celestial bodies as vital forces shaping time, memory, and the cycles of life. Their presence deepens her exploration of pigment and material, connecting it to ancestral ways of seeing the world.​

sun, suraj and sol, 23k gold leaf, synthetic sinew thread, Beam's paints on amate/amatl and cotton tassels dyed in indigo, copper water, and ashes from Nag Champa incense, East/West orientation, 94'' x 46'', 2025

sun, suraj and sol unfolds as a floor-based textile work that weaves together cosmological, spiritual, and material traditions across cultures. Presented in an East/West orientation, the piece reflects on the cyclical presence of the sun as a universal symbol of renewal, knowledge, and survival. Layers of cotton and amate/amatl with 23k gold leaf, indigo, copper water, and the crimson hues of cochineal are interwoven with ritual elements such as nag champa ashes and protective ‘evil eye’ pendants, grounding the work in practices of care and spiritual guardianship. The combination of ancestral pigments and honored materials creates a surface that moves between the sacred and the everyday. By evocking the sun in three languages, English, Hindi, and Spanish, the artist emphasizes multiplicity, diasporic translation, and the persistence of ancestral cosmologies. The rug becomes both a site of grounding and a cosmological map, linking land, body, and spirit across geographies and temporalities.​

Interstices II, coloued pencil and 23k gold on amate/amatl, 23k gold on wall, 46'' each side per triangle, 2022–2024

With Interstices II, the artist continues her visual and conceptual exploration of identity and representation through the layered interplay of materials, memory, and symbolism. Amate/amatl paper, a pre-Hispanic material traditionally produced from the bark of fig trees by Indigenous communities in what is now Mexico, grounds the work. Coloured pencil, a medium linked to intimacy, craft, and repetition, highlights her commitment to practices of slow, embodied making. Over and within this drawn surface, 23-karat gold leaf is applied, both on the paper and directly on the wall, not as ornament, but as a critical gesture. Gold here becomes a double sign: a reminder of colonial extraction and violence, and simultaneously a luminous presence that honours the sacred, the ancestral, and the persistence of life.The title Interstices refers to the spaces in-between, thresholds, cracks, and openings where hybridity, contradiction, and transformation dwell. These works inhabit that liminal space where multiple cultural, spiritual, and aesthetic traditions intersect while resisting to singular narratives, offering instead a space for translation, negotiation, and coexistence. ​

Peacock Flower, La Malinche, Malintzin, los pavonis, Caesalpinia pulcherrima, Red Bird of Paradise, oil, acrylic and white charcoal on panel, 12'' x 12'' (5 panels), 2023

Through this series, the artist explores the entangled histories of Caesalpinia pulcherrima, known variously as Peacock Flower, Red Bird of Paradise, los pavonis, and in Mexico as La Malinche or Malintzin. The plant’s shifting names reveal layers of cultural translation and appropriation, showing how knowledge and identity are reframed through colonial and diasporic lenses. Beyond its ornamental beauty, the Peacock Flower carries a complex history. During the colonial period, enslaved African and Indigenous women used it as an abortifacient, preserving an element of agency over their bodies.This knowledge transformed the plant into both a means of survival and an act of resistance against colonial control. At the same time, La Malinche, a contested figure in Mexican history, remembered as translator, mediator, and for many a symbol of betrayal, further situates the flower within narratives of power, gender, and resilience. Through this exploration the artist positions this flower as an archive: a living surface where colonial history, hybridity, and resistance continue to coexist.​

El Mago’s death, site-specific installation, bole (clay) and gouache made of cochineal and ashes from copal incense, aquarelle, dimensions variables, 2025

Painted directly onto the columns of the exhibition space, El Mago’s Death combines bolus (clay), cochineal, and ashes of copal incense with watercolour to create a surface with both material history and symbolic resonance.The pattern, inspired by the growth of the amaranth plant, a species cultivated and honored by Mesoamerican civilizations for its resilience, nourishment, and sacred significance, extends across the three columns. Interwoven into this organic design is the figure of a snake, a recurring symbol of transformation, death, and renewal in precolonial cosmologies. The work invokes cycles of growth and decay, resistance and regeneration, where ancestral knowledge and embodied ritual endure, vital and unerasable.