Elizabeth Jiménez Montelongo

My visual artwork celebrates heritage, culture, and identity as a means of unity, empowerment, and healing. Themes of my artwork include Indigenous Mexika (Aztec) dancers, Mexika philosophy, social issues, and my own experiences as an Indigenous Mexican Chicana woman. The iconography of my artwork is influenced by Mesoamerican handpainted books (codices), Nahuatl picture-writing glyphs, and ancestral concepts and philosophies.

When I moved to San José, California, I was introduced to Mexica ceremonial dance circles in the community. I have participated in traditional Mexika dance ceremonies, including in San José and at Alcatraz Island in 2014 to take part in a sunrise ceremony honoring Indigenous people and the reclaiming of Alcatraz Island 1969.

My series, The Euphoric Dance of the Unconquered Mind, features textured oil paintings of Mexika dancers that exude the movement, energy, and power of traditional Indigenous dance ceremony. The ceremony is a sensory experience that includes the smell of incense, the echoing rhythms of the drums, ankle rattles, and the color and movement of the headdresses and regalia, combined with the unified movements of the dancers.

To create the work, I crop and combine my own photographs of Mexika dancers from the San Francisco Bay Area. I then render the composition on canvas, applying paint with a palette knife for a thick impasto, in vibrant colors applied by quick spontaneous movements.

This work is lovingly created in recognition of our living culture-keepers who preserve and practice Indigenous traditions, across social and political borders, despite centuries of violent suppression, both physical and psychological, claiming space for the next generations to take part in our native traditions. The vibrantly colored paintings celebrate the continued resistance of all of Indigenous people, mental liberation, and honor our Indigenous ancestors who live on through these traditions.