In addition to being a world expert on marine algae, Dr. Juan Lopez-Bautista is a talented artist who presented his Master of Fine Arts exhibition entitled Border Stories. Dr. Lopez-Bautista’s art includes mixed media works collaged with images related to people migrating to the US-Mexican border. The artworks, painted with acrylic washes, inks, dry pigments, and acrylic transfers on synthetic paper and panels, depict migrants, and the objects that represent their presence, immersed in an abstract landscape as in a struggle for survival.
In his artist’s statement, Dr. Lopez-Bautista states “Through my artwork, I seek to understand and embrace my immigrant and hyphenated citizenship identities. Within the art practice, I strive to find paral lels with other hyphenated American visual artists to help me answer the questions: who am I? what have I become? and why do I do what I do? As such, my artwork’s overarching goal is to explore the search for a Mexican American self-identity.”