Andrea Araujo

My interest in art began at a very young age, often using drawing as a coping mechanism tool for anxiety. I continued to use this skill in my art to express the anxieties of being a brown girl growing up with machismo (misogyny) and racism in my Mexican household. Most recently, I’ve been researching colonization to try to understand my identity. I grew up Catholic, which I utterly hated praying to a white man and listening to the most misogynistic beliefs. Bell Hooks has been a big inspiration to my interpretation of intersectionality within my life and how I can challenge the narratives I grew up with. My exploration of this has in turn become my understanding and concept of god (not religiously), but through the female gaze.

Proposal

“La piel morena no me gusta.”
“Con trenzas te pareces a la India Maria.”
“Sal del sol, morenita ya estás!”

We are victims of colonization. We live in a world that has penalized anyone who isn’t white. It has in turn defined how we view beauty, success, religion, morality, living, architecture, and etc. Why is this dangerous? We’ve lost the beliefs of our ancestors. We’ve been made to believe this is how our world should be and has always been. My senior capstone project will be an imagination of what a decolonized world would look like to me. Growing up I was constantly reminded how ugly my brown skin was, how to dress, how to act, who to idolize, and what my future looks like as a catholic girl. This is my protest. I will show my depictions in a series of digital and photographic pieces.

“I don’t like darker skin.”
“You look indigenous with braids.”
“Get out of the sun, you’re brown enough!”