STATEMENT/BIO

Michael Menchaca (they/them) is a multidisciplinary Queer Xicanx / non-binary, digital-native, millennial visual artist working at the intersection of print media and new media formats. Their vector-based imagery blends the framework of ancient Mesoamerican Codices, Mexican Casta Genre Paintings, European Bestiaries, Catholic Baroque Excess, and Japanese Video Games with the seductive, attention-seeking interfaces of Big Data “smart” Technologies. They have developed a digital lexicon of animal archetypes and narrative pattern designs, or their own digital codex, to assist in mythologizing the interwoven logic of European conquest, U.S. border imperialism, data colonialism, and AI assisted automated racialized discrimination; transforming digitally composed vector graphics into immersive installations that utilize a combination of printmaking, painting, and digital animation. Menchaca's work offers a visual exploration of the intra-ethnic social variables among Latinx peoples across lines of gender, race, age, class, caste, nationality, neurodiversity, sexuality, and ability.
Michael Menchaca is a Mexican-American born and raised in San Antonio, TX. They received their BFA from Texas State University in 2011 and their MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2015, concentrating both degrees in Printmaking. Menchaca's art is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, D.C.; U.S. Library of Congress, D.C.; Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; Princeton University Art Museum, NJ; El Museo Del Barrio, NY; The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, AR; and The San Antonio Museum of Art, TX; among others. Exhibitions of their work have taken place at the Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; The Cleveland Museum of Art, OH; El Museo del Barrio, NY; The Davis Museum, MA; The Chrysler Museum of Art, VA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, D.C.; The Benton Museum of Art, CA; The Contemporary Austin, TX; The Lawndale Art Center, TX; The McNay Museum, TX; North Carolina Museum of Art, NC; and The Print Center New York, NY. They have been an artist-in-residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, ME; Vermont Studio Center, VT; the Wassaic Project, NY; the Segura Arts Studio at Notre Dame University, IN; the Serie Project at Coronado Studios, TX; The Studios at MASS MoCA, MA, and a fellow-in-residence at The Fine Arts Work Center, MA. They are one-half of the artist collective Dos Xicanx. In 2021, the US Latinx Art Forum (USLAF), supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation, awarded Menchaca the inaugural Latinx Artist Fellowship.

Portrait by: Anthony Francis