Rixy

In this new age of the bimbo, these vivacious femme characters from my storyworld “Cúcala” (spanish slang for ‘p*ssy’), teeter between their glittery ‘fantasies’ of liberation, & defend / battle their realities against the luring machismo toxicity that leaks into their bushy jungles. In attempts to let their guards down & rebuild their lands, the works are created through spatial sustainability & sensuality in the mediums & conceptualization, to ground their practice & dreams as a tough reflection of our own.

The power in these characters & production, come from redefining the fetishes in our Caribbean exoticism; getting down & dirty, disregarding any sense of what makes their womxnhood “cute enough”. Or really, using their “bimbo” pressure as a secret weapon to disarm the men & dominate – the ‘look dumb, act cunningly’ girl code. The stories of each character examines the still moments in the daily chaos between men & women. Like a freeze response to the upcoming trauma, anxious questions, ‘safe’ reactions, & lost controls – for our own ‘protections’. In the process of making of the cardboard assemblages, as tangible therapy, reexamines the hands-on labor in the survival of our domestication. The recycled canvas, installed with utility safeties, act as timekeepers of ownership, sewn & burnt to piece together the lighthearted memory of ‘traumas’, while simultaneously erasing its’ footprint. Stylizing the characters to be fluorescent & youthful, dangerous & fluid in painted layers of mediums, bridges the depth of its’ impact to see the soft & stylish beauty in all the raw bullshit behind their lashes.

Rixy (she/her) is an Interdisciplinary Visual Arts Explorer + Public Storyteller, imagining an island, “Cúcala”, that homes the complex sensualities of feminine figures – similar to the experiences within her own jungles. By reinterpreting narratives of the womXnly forms of Beauty, Health, and Power, in fluorescent layers, can We empower ourselves, + ultimately be deadly against the toxicity of Machismentos. This stems from processing the generational versions of self in a way that she could understand as an evolving young person, into a future of ancestral connection. Visions are created through Public Muralism and Studio-Mixed Assemblages, based in Painting, Illustration, and Sculpture. Typically, she’s using a mix of mediums from traditional Acrylic + Aerosol paint, + various embellishments, for outdoor application, to reusing Inks, Food Dyes, and Sustainable Materials + Fabrics within the intimate conversations and works. To tap into the body of her own, to connect with others’, and create work that can speak cross-culturally, involves research further into communities we come across – influencing practices in Teaching, Programming, and traveling Residences for deeper learning into communal practice and story sharing.

Rixy is from Roxbury, Massachusetts, a first generation latinX womXn with blood roots in Honduran Garifuna & Dominican Caribeñe lands. Primarily community + self-taught, she has received her BA at UMass Boston ’19, with a Sculpture concentration for a focus in material, sensual, + spatial awareness. Her work is most translated through her Public Muralism, Studio-Mixed Assemblages, and Communal Activations. They’ve been exhibited on street-wide and institutional spaces from her base in New England to Latin America, with continuous outreach beyond her homes. She has received the 2019 Ruth Butler Travel Fellowship to Mexico, & 2021 Converging Liberations Residency at Mass MoCA. Recently, her solo exhibition “Enter the Cúcala” at Trustman Gallery has received praise in press across MA, and she is currently a Public Art Accelerator Artists with Now +There’s Cohort 4, and an A.I.R with local social justice x public art non-profit Elevated Thought .