Mayte Amezcua
Jeweller
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MunichJewelleryWeek2024
Published: 12.03.2024
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Bio
Mayte Amezcua is a Mexican artist and graphic designer. She worked for 20 years in editorial design. Afterwards, she decided to study jewelry and continued her practice in art painting. She has participated in several collective exhibitions and workshops. She had her first solo exhibit with “Fossils of the Future”, with jewelry and paintings of encaustic art. Recently she got selected in SNAG's Juried Student Exhibition for her piece “Sincrethism” Iglesia de San Antonio Panzacola, part of the collective exhibit “Coyoacán es una joya” “Coyoacán is a Jewell” which she organized as well.Statement
I have always been a collector of things and materials that catch my eye and surprise me. Every time I sit down to work I discover that those drawers full of used objects, found materials stored for so long have a reason to be, and that is to give them a new significance with my hands, creating a sort of golems of my own that reflect either my Mexican roots or themes that are related to my profession as a designer, such as typography, color and painting. Those are the jewels for me, those found objects that I try to hold and assemble sometimes as a collage, with jewelry techniques giving them life with a different meaning.Reconstruction 2024
Two spinal operations in two years during the pandemic had an inner impact on the way I saw life. Choosing wood connects me with my organic essence, both of which are always changing, so these pieces show the story of an internal repair due to these surgeries. I sanded, cut, drilled, and assembled different types of wood and integrated them into the metal. I left visible the joints, rivets, and parts of the wood with their veins as a reminder of the vulnerability of our body and its reconstruction. I let the paint be covered with brushstrokes so the process of remodeling the material could be visible.
Totems
I inherited a profound love for trees, their nurturing and preservation from my father. I see in them a simile of the human being and a universal connection. With each worked and assembled piece of wood I wanted to represent the union that totemism, as an anthropological concept inspired me to translate the spiritual connection between the nature of wood and our humanity. I intend to give a new life and symbolism to the mystical and ancestral component that the totem represents through the reconstruction of various types of wood sourced from diverse trees, I forge backbones, joining and sculpting to activate these personal totems.
La Frontera 2023
The United States-México border connects in many ways those who live there and intertwines two very different cultures which today have merged in a significant way, forming a living amalgam that nourishes and enriches both countries. We are part of the other: impossible to separate. So, no matter how many walls are built, a border will not be able to divide the human essence that unites and defines us as human beings. The day governments understand this, borders will cease to exist as a control tool.
Fossils of the Future
"Fossils of the future" gives name to these pieces that, like shells from the sea that have come and go for hundreds of years, one will find someday on the sand. Objects made from old wood and computer keys will be transformed into fossils of the future because within time these everyday pieces will become relics. Someone will remember that in a remote 2016, they were used in something called “keyboard”. They will be future fossils of the past.
La Frontera 2013
I walk through Playas de Tijuana, bordering San Diego. I see a sign that says: "Make a wish", next to several stones on the ground. On each stone are written wishes and petitions. The "American dream" of the immigrants is to have that plastic mica that will allow them to have a better quality of life. This piece is crossed by the borderline that unites these two countries, the Green Card and a stone: their wish.
Tribalero movement
The Tribalero movement was born in the north of Mexico combining repetitive cumbia-norteño rhythms with DJ mixing, also creating a particular fashion from the extremely spiky boots and tight pants of the people who go to the dancefloor. In this body of work, I made laser-cut graphic abstractions of the boots, resembling the repetitive movement of the music with acetate discs, creating fun motifs and colourful luminous details. On the back of each piece are acid-etched song lyrics.
Coyoacán is a Jewel
One of the attractions of Coyoacán is its colonial and baroque churches that remind us of the arrival of Hernán Cortés when the Spaniards tried to put an end to the spiritual world of the indigenous people through evangelization. The syncretism generated defines us today as Mexicans. I think of the pre-Hispanic temples and what emerged in art with the Novo-Hispanic world and the churches of different periods that we visit today in Coyoacán. In my pieces you can see details of some churches on the front, and on the back, a tribute to the hidden ancestral world, with pre-Hispanic fretwork motifs that evoke what so many colonial constructions tried to cover up without luck.
Other works based on my statement
The Tribute to María Sabina series is based on the so-called “magical plants” and the ancient use that our pre-Hispanic ancestors used. Specifically, that of the Shaman María Sabina, a Mexican indigenous healer, priestess and poet who used mushrooms to access the “flesh of God” or Teonanácatl as a means of healing the body and soul.
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