Jose Vazques Ramirez

Jose Vazques Ramirez creates a visual archive of migration, memory, and resistance. As a DACA recipient, he exists in a legal and emotional limbo, neither fully claimed by Mexico nor the United States. This tension shapes his practice, where he documents the lived realities of immigrant communities and elevates narratives too often overlooked, politicized, distorted, or erased.

Portraiture anchors his work. He is drawn to faces and bodies that carry stories of endurance, family members, workers, friends, or figures drawn from collective memory. In moments of stillness, solitude, or confrontation, he seeks to capture both vulnerability and quiet strength.

Materials are central to his storytelling. He works with oil, Mylar emergency blankets, concrete, and found surfaces like reclaimed wood or sheetrock. These choices reflect his personal history while also gesturing toward broader systems of exploitation and adaptation that shape working-class lives.

Language, symbolism, and color allow him to communicate across cultural and generational lines, echoing the negotiations many immigrant children face in balancing a multicultural identity.

Ultimately, his work is about visibility: creating safe space for the undocumented, the working class, and the displaced to be seen with dignity, history, and futures worth imagining.

@artbyluup

Visit Jose Vazques Ramirez at 1219 S Ervay St. | STOP #21