Shelley Holcomb: Can you tell us about your artistic background and how you developed your specific painting style?
Danie Cansino: I’ve always had the innate ability to draw, as far back as I can remember. Though I hadn’t been formally trained, I’ve always been able to capture likeness and was drawn to portraits and figurative work… Pun intended. When I did take my first class in community college at 26, it was with the intention of becoming a portrait tattoo artist. Growing up with a liking for goth and punk culture, it was no surprise I’d be enamored with the baroque aesthetics in European art history. The darkness in these paintings gave the subjects a powerful aesthetic I admired, and started mimicking in my own work.
Shelley: In your paintings, you often incorporate your friends and family as subjects. How do you approach the process of inserting your loved ones into your artwork, and what significance does it hold for you?
Danie: The process entails photographing all the subjects myself, and building a digital composite of multiple photos to build the environment. I also sometimes will work straight from old family photos (as seen in my current painting on view, “This is My Blood”) which is much more difficult, but captures a mood of nostalgia and history that couldn’t be done any other way in my opinion.
I choose friends, family, and colleagues as subjects because I feel that inserting them into my work brings visibility to my community — giving people around me a position in the historical art cannon. It’s like what John Leguizamo says in “Latin History for Morons”: “If you don’t see yourself in history, you just feel fucking invisible.”
Shelley: Your work is described as a fusion of Baroque realism and Chicanx aesthetics. Can you discuss the significance of combining these artistic styles and how it contributes to the narrative you aim to convey?
Danie: In my undergraduate education, there was a large focus on European styles and techniques of painting, largely influenced by the art academies of France and Italy. The introduction of the idea of Fine Art, being attributed to the genius of Europeans and their techniques, created a sense of “other” in indigenous and tribal art that of which has been around since the dawn of time. In learning about and seeing historical paintings of the Baroque Era, it’s clear that there is an absence of people of color. As Leah Perez describes in the catalog for the show, “being both colonized and colonizer”, I sometimes feel I’m battling these complex feelings of genetic memory. By inserting chicanism, I feel like I’m opening a conversation of presence, and a kind of proving that I can, and will, use the tools once deemed superior, against Eurocentric ideation.
Shelley: In your current exhibition, “This Is My Blood,” you delve into the world of magical realism. Could you elaborate on the inspiration behind this concept and how it subverts the traditions of Western art? How does the use of magical realism in your artwork challenge conventional or “Western” notions of reality?
Danie: The magical realism elements in my work are inspired by the folklore of Mexican culture, and how that influences our spirituality as a people. I don’t think this feeling or idea is absent in Western notions of reality; as we see beings like angels, demons, beasts, and other mythologies abundantly in historical European work. Difference is solely in the type of fantastical creatures. As there was/is an absence of black and brown figures, there’s also absence of the magical imagery in those cultures.
Alebrije animals are of Mexican folklore, said to guide spirits to the underworld. The first Alebrijes, as well as the name, are attributed to Pedro Linares who specialized in the craftsmanship. Originated in Mexico City in 1936. Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo were some of the first to commission Pedro’s artwork through Cuernavaca Gallery in Mexico City. This ties to the idea also of “a seat at the table” as the gallery allowed Pedro to have a platform to sell his art.
Shelley: The exhibition’s centerpiece is a work titled “Your Truth Will Determine…” which depicts your take on Da Vinci’s The Last Supper, (1495–1498). I know that you painting yourself into this one. Can you dive into who else we see in the panel with all women? Also, what is the significance of the roosters in the front?
Danie: A Seat at the Table has Frida Kahlo as Jesus Christ, as she is the most common household name of famous women brown artists, who endured a sufferable journey. She shares her blood in communion with us, as paving the way for our right to sit at the table. La Malinche is also present, representing Judas- the traitor, and the idea that women are responsible for the downfall of any civilization (Pandora, Eve, Helen of Troy, Cleopatra,etc).
“Your truth will determine” is suggesting that all the men in the left panel understand that the women in the right panel deserve and have earned a seat at the table, as they do. Friends among friends, with similar experiences and feelings of erasure of culture and lack of representation as people of a marginalized group. They are in awe of the table, and the presence and support of the Alebrije animals of Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelly.
There is a purposeful imbalance in both panels.. should be 13 at last supper, but there are more men and less women depicted, pointing to the fact that brown women have less “seats at the table” in terms of career stability in the art world. ( News repost by Artsy finds that women account for less than 10% auction sales in 2022)
Shelley: How do you navigate the complexities and potential tensions that arise from combining elements of traditional Catholic and Western subject matter with contemporary figures like “Jessica (As Olympia)” or the juxtaposition of the traditional dance of folklórico with queer imagery like in “Jarabe Tapatío”?
Danie: I feel I am pointing to the adaptation of our generation (millennials in particular) that are no longer looking to appease the rigid gender and religious restraints of our upbringings. For example in Jarabe Tapatio, They both are wearing a combination of traditional and non traditional clothing in this painting. Megan is a ballet folklorico dancer, but grew up in the punk scene, which blurs into her dance practice. She’s also a journalist, editor in chief for Los Angeles Journal, and as a woman faces challenges in her position amongst a majority of men. Karla is a queer ceramicist born and raised in Jalisco Mexico, where this dance (the pose) originates from, who also battles with the ideations of machismo culture that is still present in their hometown.
Also, These works examine the reintroduction of our ancestral practices, like a vessel linking us to the past. Like inJessica as Olympia, Jess is positioned on a crocheted blanket that has been in her family, which ties to ancestral practice of Cuban people and particularly Cuban women. Her gaze however, confronting the viewer, gives her autonomy and the defying energy that we see in Manet’s Olympia.
Shelley: As an LA-based artist, how does the cultural and artistic landscape of the city influence your work, particularly in relation to your exploration of Chicanx aesthetics and Mexican spirituality? Or in the subjects you’re choosing? What does it mean for you to show this work in your home turf?
Danie: A lot of my work is about hybridity and adaptation, and how it’s been translated through diasporic experiences. I think that spiritual element came from me moving back to the area I grew up in — and where generations of my family lived. It really took flight when I moved to my current residence — where I see the mausoleum of Calvary cemetery and the palm trees that line it from my living room windows. My grandparents, great grandparents, and other families are buried there, and I feel a sense of their presence and support here that I wanted to convey in the imagery of the landscape.
Shelley: What story do you see yourself telling over time?
Danie: I hope to tell the story of my family and community, in a way that acknowledges the historical heartache, but also celebrates the beauty in the richness of our resilience.
Danie Cansino This is My Blood is on view through June 24 at Charlie James Gallery. 969 Chung King Rd. Los Angeles, CA 90012.
Images courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles. Photo Credit: Yubo Dong/ofstudio.
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