Mandy Cano

Proyecto H presents the exhibition Carnívora by Mandy Cano. There will be an open studio on Saturday October 29 from 11am to 3pm.

A single army mother raised the artist. Her childhood was a succession of army bases and new schools that lead to a lack of locational and generational belonging. In the search for this norm, Cano became a collector of old photos, discarded books, folktales, broken toys, scratched records, Greek myths, and anything that could provide a larger human narrative in which the artist could situate her own story. These second-hand memories became her surrogate home. 

The pieces of Mandy Cano portray the personal narratives of people excluded from officially recorded histories. Her work pays homage to her collaborators, retells their stories, and invites viewers to recognize what is familiar and in turn, recognize themselves in the othered.

Cano juxtaposes in her sculptures an open dialog surrounding history, location, domesticity, dominance, the public and private, and effectively, the ever-changing identity of people. In this way, her aim is to incite social change, to empower women and communities who have been systematically devalued throughout History. 

The process of her work is equally significant. The artist often employs repetitious stitching and mark-making that allow her to experience each second, minute, and hour as they pass. Many unassuming small pieces take weeks and sometimes months to complete. Each work is a vestige of touch, time, and craft, a quiet protest to consumerism. 

— Proyecto H