Artist Spotlight: Luz Peña

“I’m Luz, I’m a mestiza artist of Peruvian, Spanish, and Native American descent expressing my heritage through my art. I love colors, and used them to convey feelings in my work! My main medium is my signature sharpie art, as well as dabbling in fiber art and collage!”

CPJ: So, starting off, tell me about yourself? Just who you are as a person

Luz: I’m a senior here at Evergreen, I’m 23 years old, I identify as Mestiza, I have Peruvian and Native American heritage, and my POC identity is very important to me and is what I identify the most with when it comes to myself. I’m trying to think of how else I would think about myself… pretty loud.

CPJ: Yeah, I get that. So, when I first looked through your page on instagram, I was like “holy shit, this is so beautiful and so amazing” and just holding my phone so close up to my face for the past two days, just trying to consume the tiniest details. You mentioned that your culture is a big part of your identity, and I got a very big sense of that in your art, so I guess I’d like to know more about that.

Luz:Yeah, definitely. For me, it’s like a way of connecting back to my roots and heritage, especially my Peruvian heritage because in my art there’s a lot of, you know, Peruvian culture that can be shown, like I draw alpacas a lot, I really love traditional Andean embroidery, which is really important to me because my family originated from the Andes in Peru, so that’s kind of like, a way to reincorporate that fact into my life, just because I feel like living in the United States, being born in the United States, we are often disconnected heavily from our roots, especially Mestizo or Hispanic roots, and even our parents sometimes want us to live in a more “white” way, so for me it’s a way of like, retouching that part of myself that was kind of buried for a while, if that makes sense.

CPJ: Yeah, I get that. Just like, growing up in the United States and being separated from your culture and only being able to experience that connection through your parents has a very different effect on you.

Luz: Yeah, for sure, you get it!

CPJ: Yeah, I’ve had this conversation so many times. But, just the sense of reconnecting to your culture through art, or however else anyone wants to is a wonderful thing. Especially the way that you express it. One thing that got to me the most, and I feel like anyone else who has seen your art before, is the usage of colors; there’s just color in every single inch of your work and I’m just like “wow, this is intense”. But, how do you go about the usage of color in your art?

Luz: I guess for me, the main part of my art is the color. I’ll just do a little sketch, but then everything else will be filled with markers and paints and colors. I just like having as much color as possible, and usually I don’t have a specific color scheme in mind, I just kind of go for it and put down what just feels right and what I like and what makes me feel happy.

CPJ: Yeah, intense colors take the art to a whole other level, and I like that you use the color that you feel the most, not what looks the best, but what you can feel, you know? It’s a really important aspect.

CPJ: Are there any other real life influences? I notice that you include flowers a lot in your art as well, and a lot of other figures that represent nature, like plants and the sun.

Luz: Yeah, definitely, I love the natural world. I love incorporating flowers; sometimes the flowers have meanings, sometimes they don’t. But, I like to put in a lot of symbology in my art, like in the drawing I most recently drew for my dog that had just passed; the flowers I drew were sweet potatoes because he loved sweet potatoes. In a different drawing a couple months back, all the flowers I drew were quinoa flowers, which were supposed to represent Peru, and specifically the Andes. Mountains as well because I feel like that connects back to here, Washington, which has Mount Rainier and the Olympics, and all the way back to Peru and the Andes. I like incorporating the sun, too; growing up in Washington, at least for me, the lack of sun started to get to me as I grew older, so I like to put the sun in there and it makes me feel happy, and it’s a source of life.

CPJ: Yeah, I get that. Washington weather is crazy. But I do get a sense of like, happiness in your art a lot of the time, and like you said, that is also represented through the sun and that isn’t seen very often in Washington. I also get a sense that it would take a lot of reflecting upon your surroundings. So I was wondering, what is your process in getting into that state of reflection, like  getting into your senses deeply enough to reflect, and then putting that onto paper?

Luz: Initially, it’s strong emotions that usually start the process; it’s either that I’m super sad, or sometimes I would be feeling very deep gratitude. But usually, it’s some very strong emotions that I don’t know how to express very well that starts the process. Or I’ll think of what colors to use, or what background, what kind of figures, what kind of visual language I want to use. That’s pretty much the starting point, and different things that would influence it, or how to change it along the way. 

CPJ: I get that, a lot of emotion goes into your art, and using art as a way to get through emotional turmoil, or to express the depths of your gratitude. Art is a very good way to get that through.

CPJ: I also noticed, while looking through your page, that you had a comic book in progress,and that a lot of the influences for that piece were themes of loneliness and trying to guide yourself through that emotion, as well as connections to your Peruvian culture, so i’m wondering about your process of looking at your culture through the lens of your art. 

Luz: For me, there is a certain loneliness to the culture, in a way, just because colonization has taken away many original aspects and increased Western and European influence. That kind of takes away some of the uniqueness of the culture, and so I think there is some sort of loneliness there. Especially for those who still practice the original ways of weaving. For me, the main theme of the comic is loneliness and disappearing, which I feel kind of relates to some of my own cultural background, and having to be forced to leave, which is what my father’s family had to go through. So that’s the kind of lens I’m looking at it through, like a generational lens, if that makes sense.

CPJ: That makes sense, just like, trying to understand it through art. And I definitely understand the sense of loneliness, like trying to go back to your culture to understand. Have you been back to Peru?

Luz: No, I haven’t. That’s also a big part of what contributes to the loneliness. I feel very ethnically alone, if that makes any sense, because there isn’t anyone here from that culture, besides myself. There aren’t many Hispanic people here in general, as you probably know as well, as a person who is Hispanic. But yeah, it kind of feels like I am alienated in a way. It’s a very odd feeling.

CPJ: It’s a very intense sense of alienation, especially here at Evergreen.  

Luz: Yeah, especially when I’m in class and I’m the only POC there. 

CPJ: I definitely understand the need to reconnect to your culture through art, especially when that alienation begins to come through.

CPJ: I also saw in one of your posts that you want to create a children’s book with your art in the future. Could you go a little more into that, just like, how you would navigate through that, or if you’re even still wanting to pursue that?

Luz: I’m still thinking about it, especially thinking about my earliest childhood memories. Some of the most effective pieces of art, to me, have been through children’s arts books. As a little kid, experiencing things that were already hard, I was able relate to, on a level, things that were already being depicted. Like, The Giving Tree, like when I was a little kid, that would make me sad, but would also make me feel at peace with some other things that were happening. I feel like kids are so innocent, too, and I feel like, in a way, I am able to reconnect to those moments that I felt were lost or stolen from me by working through the lens of childlike innocence. I know that people talk about the inner child a lot, but for me, my art is a way for me to help that lonely little kid within me.

CPJ: Yeah, I definitely get that feeling through your art. Your art, to me,has a very strong sense of playfulness and just overall through the child-like imagination, in the most expressive way. It’s like- you just have a beautiful imagination. 

Luz: Thank you, I appreciate it. 

CPJ: Of course, and I definitely get the childlike aspect being seen through the colors, the imagery and the characters that you create. Speaking of the characters, tell me about the characters. 

Luz: One of the characters, or perhaps the character that has appeared the most in my work, is a little bat named Muriciél; if anyone looks through my page, they can probably see a little bat in a big hat and a poncho, doing various things. I have very vague details figured out about him, but all I know is that he is on a journey of some sort. I still haven’t figured out the details, but it’s more important to have him be the vessel through which I’m sort of like traveling my own emotions, in a way; there are some drawings where he’s in perilous situations, or peaceful situations. He’s also an animal, which is something I used because animals are more connected to the natural world and, in a way, I’m sort of envious. I want to be as connected to the natural world as animals are. But, that’s kind of why I draw animals, to just kind of like, travel around the world, and have the world through his eyes. All the other characters, including some of the humans that I include, wear hats, which is a character design that I like a lot because it’s very prevalent in Peruvian culture to wear hats. There’s a man that wears a hat, and another female devil character, and they’re a pair that exist in the same universe,and they’re the main characters of the comic that I’m working on, and they kind of exist in this semi fantasy world, semi pre-colonial Peru. It’s kind of like a mixture of real life and fantasy, and it’s supposed to take place in the beginning of the world, and it’s kind of like a creation myth that I’m trying to create, if that makes any sense, using these characters. I don’t have a lot figured out about them, and a few other things that I need to figure out. The female devil’s name is Ch’aska, which is Quechua for “Venus”, and that star was very important to the Inca culture, and the man’s name is T’iqsi. 

CPJ: Wow, I’m really excited to see how you will navigate and work through all that in the future. I can already tell that however you use your art, it will be great. And hearing you go through your process and your inspirations, especially how you described the bat being a vessel for yourself and your journey as a person, it’s beautiful to hear. Anything else you’d want to get into?

Luz: Not off the top of my head, a lot of my art is just emotion based.

CPJ: Yeah, and emotions are just something you’d just have to be there to experience. There’s not much thought into it.

Luz: And sometimes it does feel like I am throwing up my emotions onto the paper, which kind of feels good!

You can find more of Luz’s work on her various art accounts, so make sure to follow all three! @azukiebeans @adzukie_art @adzukiedolls