Flowers for the Living – 2022 August 31 – October 11, 2024 Opening Reception: August 31st, 6-8pm
Antonio Lechuga’s Flowers for the Living – 2022 is an exhibition in which healing is the focus. Antonio takes cobijas (fleece blankets) found in most Mexican-American and Latinx households and uses them to offer a space for comfort, grief and for care.
For this project, 647 fleece flowers of differing sizes, shapes and colors are extracted from these blankets and sewn together to create a large, expansive, almost infinite bouquet of flowers with each one representing a family of each victim who died from mass shootings that occurred during the year of 2022. This work becomes a visual marker, a representation of the severity and the magnitude of this ongoing tragedy and the weight of the toll of just one year of mass shootings here in this country.
This bouquet of flowers will never die, wilt, or lose its shape or color. This exhibition will always aim to build community, provide warmth, and offer a space for grieving and healing.
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