Astrid Terrazas
?What does it taste like to straddle the two
I have uneasy footing and the saddle is threadbare
.The two currents lick my feet-whirling mud-encrusted blisters
like the belly of a sugar ant
:Each one sebaceous and engorged
The agent holds a mirror
You speak the borderland"
Language
”The language in which a snake sings backwards
This time I walked backwards
and carved “tourist” into the dirt
Astrid Terrazas -
Astrid Terrazas
The snake sings backwards, 2024
oil on canvas
36 x 48 ins.
91.4 x 121.9 cm
Lodos is pleased to present The snake sings backwards, Astrid Terrazas’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. Working in an illustrative, highly detailed style and often adorning her canvases with talismans, charms, and threadwork, Terrazas’ multimedia paintings resemble a visual dream diary full of transient figures, archaic symbols, and illogical narratives. Wielding a singular visual language which merges dreamscapes, Mexican ancestral folklore, lived experiences, and unearthly transfigurations, Terrazas’s recurring motifs function as artifacts of protection and evoke universal metaphors of transformation and healing.
Astrid Terrazas
I have uneasy footing and the saddle is threadbare, 2024
oil on canvas, cochineal
60 x 78 ins.
152.4 x 198.1 cm
In The snake sings backwards Terrazas presents a new series of paintings and ceramic sculptures that together create a sacred space which honors duality and ideals of empathy and reciprocity. Informed by the geography of her childhood, Terrazas contends with borders both physical and psychological. Born in Juarez, Mexico, Terrazas as a child viewed the Mexican American border as fluid, porous, and arbitrary. This relationship was abruptly halted when, at the age of seven, Terrazas and her parents relocated to Dallas, Texas. In the largescale painting I have uneasy footing and the saddle is threadbare, 2024 Terrazas allegorizes the experience of straddling two worlds. Referencing Mexican devotional imagery, Terrazas depicts a monumental skinned figure floating above the earth holding two banners with her white braids. The figure on the left symbolizes the artist’s childhood in Mexico and can be viewed as the “builder” of Terrazas’s foundation. Her banner is filled by a blossoming orange tree that roots into her braid and then into the earth, while the figure on the right is still weaving her banner, the bottom of which is left empty with the promise of the future. The twin figures are tethered by a central transparent saddle, which symbolizes guidance, agency, and acts a portal for safe travel between borders.
Astrid Terrazas
Mi Rostro, 2024
Stoneware, glaze, aluminum basin
24 x 13 3/8 x 13 3/8 ins.
61 x 34 x 34 cm
Alongside the paintings, Terrazas includes two hand built ceramic fountains which face towards each other from opposite sides of the exhibition space. Challenging traditional power structures which control the flow of water, the sister fountains metaphorically replenish themselves, revealing the individual’s capacity for reciprocity and regeneration. Terrazas’s interest in water is specifically tied to her relationship to the Rio Grande, a natural divide between the United States and Mexico. Works such as Mi Rostro, 2024 serves as a self-portrait of the artist, each section building upon and resupplying the next. In both sculptures, Terrazas reveals how individuals can take on the power of a fountain and become sites of radical empathy and abundant replenishment.
Astrid Terrazas (b. Juarez, Mexico, 1996) received her BFA in Illustration from Pratt Institute in 2018. She has exhibited at P·P·O·W, New York, NY; Y2K Group, New York, NY; Andrea Festa Fine Art, Rome, IT; Marinaro, New York, NY; Fort Makers, New York, NY; Gern en Regalia, New York, NY; Front Gallery, Houston, TX; 98 Orchard St, New York, NY; Nicodim, New York, NY; Lyles & King, New York, NY; Art in Common, Los Angeles, CA; Deli Gallery, Mexico City, MX; and UTA Artist Space, Los Angeles, CA; among others. Her work has been featured in articles in Art in America, Art Maze Mag, The Art Newspaper, and The Brooklyn Rail, among others. Terrazas was featured in 52 Artists: A Feminist Milestone at The Aldrich Contemporary Museum of Art, Ridgefield, CT in 2022 and Perhaps the Truth at Ballroom Marfa, Marfa, TX in 2023. Terrazas will present her first solo exhibitions with FOUNDRY SEOUL, South Korea in August 2024. Her next solo exhibition with P·P·O·W will open spring 2025.
The snake sings backwards (Installation View) Lodos Gallery, Condo Mexico City, Mexico, April 11 – May 25, 2024. Photo: Ramiro Chaves.
The snake sings backwards (Installation View) Lodos Gallery, Condo Mexico City, Mexico, April 11 – May 25, 2024. Photo: Ramiro Chaves.
The snake sings backwards (Installation View) Lodos Gallery, Condo Mexico City, Mexico, April 11 – May 25, 2024. Photo: Ramiro Chaves.
The snake sings backwards (Installation View) Lodos Gallery, Condo Mexico City, Mexico, April 11 – May 25, 2024. Photo: Ramiro Chaves.
The snake sings backwards (Installation View) Lodos Gallery, Condo Mexico City, Mexico, April 11 – May 25, 2024. Photo: Ramiro Chaves.
The snake sings backwards (Installation View) Lodos Gallery, Condo Mexico City, Mexico, April 11 – May 25, 2024. Photo: Ramiro Chaves.
The snake sings backwards (Installation View) Lodos Gallery, Condo Mexico City, Mexico, April 11 – May 25, 2024. Photo: Ramiro Chaves.
The snake sings backwards (Installation View) Lodos Gallery, Condo Mexico City, Mexico, April 11 – May 25, 2024. Photo: Ramiro Chaves.
The snake sings backwards (Installation View) Lodos Gallery, Condo Mexico City, Mexico, April 11 – May 25, 2024. Photo: Ramiro Chaves.
The snake sings backwards (Installation View) Lodos Gallery, Condo Mexico City, Mexico, April 11 – May 25, 2024. Photo: Ramiro Chaves.
The snake sings backwards (Installation View) Lodos Gallery, Condo Mexico City, Mexico, April 11 – May 25, 2024. Photo: Ramiro Chaves.
The snake sings backwards (Installation View) Lodos Gallery, Condo Mexico City, Mexico, April 11 – May 25, 2024. Photo: Ramiro Chaves.
The snake sings backwards (Installation View) Lodos Gallery, Condo Mexico City, Mexico, April 11 – May 25, 2024. Photo: Ramiro Chaves.
The snake sings backwards (Installation View) Lodos Gallery, Condo Mexico City, Mexico, April 11 – May 25, 2024. Photo: Ramiro Chaves.
Terrazas presents a new series of paintings and ceramic sculptures that together create a sacred space which honors duality and ideals of empathy and reciprocity.