Joiri Minaya is a young female artist originating from the Dominican Republic. She is working with a variety of medium, including photography, performances, sculpture, fabrics and painting. However, her particular interest lies in experimenting with different kind of patterns and how they overlap, complement each other and create a certain narrative.
She defines her home country as a main inspiration for her works. Although at a certain age she moved from the Dominican Republic to the United States, she continued to feel deeply attached to her native culture. Moreover, the differences between the countries became so prominent to her, that she decided to explore this topic deeper and to connect her art with it.
However, at the same time it is fair to notice that her art explores the aspects of cultural representation quite naturally because of her own interest in this topic. After all, art creation is a deeply intimate process, which relates to many moments in artist’s life. Sometimes it is evident that even minor influences can significantly affect one’s art. Therefore, when it comes to major things such as intercultural studies, issues of representation and deep connection to the native land, it is natural that Minaya’s art is deeply influenced by all of these topics.
One of the biggest turning points in her art journey was the moment when she started to integrate to the United States society. The encounter of large cultural diversity and art expressions which she had never seen before inspired her to look at the world around her in a slightly different way. Hence, it served as a start of her elaborated art expression and experimentation with medium, influenced both by the discoveries within the United States and the motifs of the Dominican Republic.
Mainly, Minaya started to notice the similar patterns of stereotypes about her homeland that people in the United States believed in. Naturally, she started to reflect on the topics of imperialism and colonization, and the way it affects global perception of different cultures, such as her own (Anderson). Thus, as she started her art journey, she intended to reflect on the given topics visually: that is one of the reasons why the common visual elements in her works are palm trees, sea and flowers. This way, she depicts the reality of Dominican Republic which she experienced through the easily recognizable elements enforced by the stereotypes.
Similarly, within her art pieces she mainly portrays feminine figures. Like this, she intertwines the topics of cultural representation and feminism, combining it into the major exploration motif in her art: depiction of cultural identity of Dominican women. The artist herself described how the process of creating collages with women and tropical patterns frustrated her a lot in the beginning (Anderson). She was troubled by the concept of stereotypes in general and the way it affects global perception of certain targeted groups. Unjustified expectations towards Dominican women based solely on stereotypes in the environment of the United States became the main topic of explorations and experimentations within her collages at the early stages of Minaya’s art journey.
Juxtaposition of cultures and discovery of a specific stereotyped view of her native land majorly influenced by colonization and imperialism made Minaya particularly interested in exploring the topic of representation. Thus, the influence of this theme on her art is highly evident through the visual patterns she is applying. Therefore, for the majority of people their upbringing and cultural background play a crucial role within their art.
Work Cited
Anderson, Kayla. “Joiri Minaya unravels social fabrics and draws attention to patterns”. Art21. Web.