Celeste De Luna

Artist’s Statement:

My work documents  individual and collective experiences in my physical/spiritual/psychic environment. I explore the complexity of relationships and power dynamics between  people, animals, domestic spaces,  and landscape. That landscape and environment is Texas, Tejas, a border space, known  by many names. Sometimes I employ futuristic imagery inspired by nature, cultural experiences and science fiction. I work from embodied experiences related to mental/physical health, caregiving, and generational pain. This landscape, infrastructure, and society has deeply impacted how I move through different environments.  Through my work, I aim to preserve and illustrate the traces of this impact, shedding light on themes such migration, collective resilience and joy, and connecting with indigenous roots.  Much of my earlier work shows the body and mind subject to the pre-pandemic South Texas borderland that I grew up in for over 40 years.   Happily, my vision is continuously expanding of the Texas landscape and the Southwest, the frontera, and people. At the heart of my work is being deeply rooted to place, keeping time, telling/remembering visions, stories, and people. 

My choices of materials, printmaking, multiples and fabric installation, are based on my cultural background, economic insecurity, and how these tools and processes make me feel. Printmaking gives me a feeling of abundance and allows me to make mistakes. The security that making multiples supplies of always having a chance to perfect something and problem solve continues to fascinate me. Prints that are imperfect can be transformed through collage and other processes. Printmaking tools and its connection to the trades reminds me of my father and the tool shed he built himself behind our home. Fabric pieces remind me of my mother’s creativity who used to make us clothing and connect my artwork  to femininity and craft. 

Biography:

Celeste De Luna is an artist/printmaker originally from the lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. Celeste is a self-taught printmaker whose work includes large-scale woodcut prints and fabric installation. A long time arts educator of over 15 years in  public schools and higher education, she now teaches at Northwest Vista College. “A true daughter of the borderlands, her art celebrates the quotidian and the exceptional on the border,” writes indigenous studies professor Ines Hernandez-Avila. Currently, she lives in San Antonio and works out of her home studio, Metztli Press. Celeste has been awarded residencies, fellowships, & grants from Vermont Studio Center, ArtplaceAmerica, a Blade of Grass, Santa Fe Art Institute Artist Residency and in 2022, showed her work in Vancouver in the exhibit “Xicanx: Dreamers and Changemakers”.