Ana Perches: Assemblage - Theater

Assemblage - Theater

I rummaged through the basement and found a wooden wine box, and began to plan which of the objects I had at home could be arranged, pasted or attached to the inside of the box, as in a theater stage. (Ana Perches, 2018 )

I consider myself a self-taught artist. Only since 2014 have I engaged in art in a systematic manner after joining the Art Junket collective. For my first piece in 2014, I rummaged through the basement and found a wooden wine box, and began to plan which of the objects I had at home could be arranged, pasted or attached to the inside of the box, as in a theater stage. A theme emerged: Cielito Lindo, the Mexican folk song addressing a loved one, usually translated My Beautiful Sky or Heaven, the idea being “My Dear One.” At the center of the box is a small skeleton doll which I dressed as La Muerte with a piñata stick, hitting a smaller female doll hoisted by a wire, and who has blood on her clothes. This was my first assemblage, and is currently at home in my private collection.

mbftizmahan. Ana Perches. Photo. Berkeley, California. 2019.

I had not yet discovered the work of Joseph Cornell, the master of Assemblage and of the shadow box, until an art historian friend from Mills College pointed him out to me. I read about him, about his poetic theater-boxes and unexpected juxtaposition of objects. He was self-taught, a collector, a fan of second-hand stores. His story-boxes emerge from his psyche and dreams to invite the viewer into his own private world.

For subsequent projects I explored painting on canvas with acrylic paints and soon found myself wanting to cut and paste on canvas or wood, incorporating collage, fabric and three-dimensional objects. I am drawn to performance, to costumes, to movement and story-telling, as for many years I taught Mexican theater at the University of Arizona, and wrote plays which I staged, produced and directed for my students. Prominent themes in my plays were the border, feminism and politics. I find myself carrying these themes onto a smaller stage now, dramatizing not with words or actors but with objects, colors and textures.

I’ve always been a lover of the fine arts, but also of outsider art, and what the French call Art Brut (unpolished, unrefined, natural, “rough”). I found I had an affinity for this kind of art, well-suited to my limited drawing skills and technical immaturity. My kind of art is a bit “on the edge” but also physically and psychologically on the edge of the US-Mexican border. The Rio Grande separates the United States from Mexico and the Río Bravo separates Mexico from the United States. Same river, different name, same desert. A space overlapping two nations but a single space, joined and divided. This “both” and this “neither” is the basis of Border Art, a form inspired by graffiti, street art, outsider art and performance art. And by my own experience as a person from the border, a borderix.

Front page art: Ana Perches, Coyolxauhqui (Aztec Moon Goddess). 2015.

Artwork and words: Ana Perches

Ana Perches is a 2014 founding member of the Art Junket. She works out of Berkeley, California.

Photo of Ana: Maureen Fitzmahan