Work in Progress - JUSTIN FAVELA at the Sugar Hill Childrens Museum of Art and Storytelling

Justin “FavyFav” Favela’s piñata-like visual art, acclaimed podcast (Latinos Who Lunch, co-hosted with Emmanuel “Babelito” Ortega) and full-hearted advocacy of Latinx culture speak for themselves. Favela invites guests to share what Mexico represents to them and how they would see that embodied in a piñata. The artist will then construct a piñata using the guests’ direction and hang it in P3Studio. By using piñatas as a personal artistic medium, Favela seeks to create a utopian world where our collective views of Mexico are represented. The Valley of Mexico by Jose Maria Velasco has been pixelated to offer a distorted romantic idea about Mexico in the nineteenth century. These types of landscapes, which many times were internationally exhibited, were intended to offer signifiers of the newly independent nation. As a backdrop to Piñatotopia, The Valley of Mexico seeks to inspire viewers in helping the artist in the creation of new symbols of the nation. A graduate of UNLV, Justin Favela currently lives and works in Las Vegas. His art, a combination of painting, sculpture and performance, has been displayed throughout the United States and the Las Vegas community, including the Contemporary Arts Center, Trifecta Gallery and the Donna Beam Gallery of Fine Art. He is currently participating in the group exhibition “State of the Art: Discovering America Now” at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.