Ricards Estrada - prints and biography
Ricardo Estrada
Biography
Ricardo Estrada is a Los Angeles Chicano artist whose paintings, drawings, prints, and murals explore Mexican American identity and the communities of Southern California. A native Angeleno who grew up in Los Angeles during the 1980s and 1990s, Estrada has described much of his work as being concerned with finding, embracing, and taking pride in one's identity.¹
Estrada is particularly known for portraits that emphasize the individuality and dignity of people rarely represented as subjects of traditional fine art.² His work is closely connected with Los Angeles's community-based Chicano arts tradition and Self Help Graphics & Art in Boyle Heights. In 2012, he participated in Una Trenza, a collaborative mural created for Self Help Graphics.³
Estrada's 2012 screenprint Cihuacoatl, produced at Self Help Graphics & Art, is in the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).⁴
Estrada depicts a tattooed male figure facing the viewer, his arms raised and hands resting behind his head in a deliberate, self-presenting pose. His T-shirt has been pulled over his face, revealing the shape of a skull underneath.
The juxtaposition of the concealed face, skeletal image, and highly personal tattooed body creates a complex image of identity, mortality, and self-presentation. Estrada leaves much of its meaning open, allowing the figure's tattoos, pose, and obscured identity to carry the image.
The print was bears the Self Help Graphics & Art blindstamp at lower left. An impression of Cihuacoatl is in the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).