Santa Fe-based artist Daisy Quezada Ureña receives national award

Santa Fe-based artist Daisy Quezada Ureña has been named one of 15 Latinx Artist Fellows for 2023 by the US Latinx Art Forum—the only artist from New Mexico to receive the $50,000 award. As described in a news release, “the 2023 Latinx Art Fellowship class was chosen to reflect the the Latinx community’s diversity, highlighting the practices of women-identified, queer, and nonbinary artists, as well as those from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds, ranging from Chicanx and El Salvadoran to Dominican-American, Afro-Latinx, and Indigenous-identified.” The fellowship, initiated in 2021, is characterized as the US Latinx Art Forum’s largest initiatives providing direct support to artists, is part of the Latinx Art Visibility Initiative, which is led by the Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

A jury of curators chose this year’s cohort from more than 200 nominees recommended by invited external nominators with Latinx art expertise.

“As the Latinx Artist Fellowship marks its third year, this cohort of artists speaks to the wide range of aesthetic strategies, conceptual practices, and subject matter that position Latinx artists as vital and significant voices within contemporary art,” US Latinx Art Forum Director of Programs Mary Thomas said in a statement. “USLAF is excited to continue our work to support artists and welcome this new cohort of fellows.”

Quezada Ureña is currently out of the country but responded to a query from SFR via email about the award, writing:

“Reflecting to when I was first made aware of this recognition, I think it interesting how abruptly my disposition changed. As a common practice for myself, I try and exist through hope. A hope that seeks to denounce abuse in pursuit of awakening myself and those around me. Paulo Freire said something of that sort, a while back that hit home. So, when I got the news, I was caught in an unknown trying to ground myself in various ways, which I arrived at momentarily after sharing with my immediate family. Then, my comprehension of reality shifted to an alternative that I am still working through. Between moving through various states of myself in an unprecedented pace, including simultaneous stillness, I feel a sense of hope and responsibility to this land and the people who make this home that has provided for me in many ways.

“My intention is to reciprocate that in whatever way that becomes. As I seek to create and bring something forward my intentions are to move with care and to not only mirror that for those around me but also within myself.”

Quezada Ureña, who grew up in Southern New Mexico and Mexico, is currently the chair of the Institute of American Indian Arts’ Studio Arts Department. She tells SFR she is also working on “a chapter contribution to a book being edited by Dr. Gabriela Aceves Sepúlveda, Dr. Analays Alvarez Hernandez and Dr. Zaira Zarza and the inclusion of bosque brotante in an upcoming Los Angels exhibition, Mud Kin.”