About
A graduate with a Bachelors in fine art, Jassiel Serna is a paper mache artist whose work advocates for the proper representation of Mexican and indigenous art within gallery settings. In Serna’s work he embraces his Mexican-American culture by flavoring his sculptures with tajin and chamoy through layers of paper mache as a way to make his work blatantly Mexican. His work explores themes of nature, culture, identity, politics and religion.
Artist Statement
This work is a dissection of the traditional craft of paper mache. A medium I first learned from crafting piñatas as a kid with my mother. Now reinventing the simple and cheap materials to create fine art. My sculptures play to the aesthetics of primitive art, creating museum-like pieces with an aim to check all of the boxes of what is considered to be Mexican art and culture.
As an expression of a natural process, I create relic-like sculptures that are reminiscent of terra-cotta and stone-like finishes. Encapsulated within the landscapes are layers of tajin and chamoy. An obvious way of making my sculptures blatantly Mexican. And a direct response to the diluted and seemingly digestible versions of Mexican culture.
I see the Mexican materials breathing life into still white landscapes, incorporated within and below as a symbol of the persistence and integration of my culture within fine art. Yet the work bleeds a conforming Mexican identity. It is this battle that my work aims to capture.