'It makes me feel seen'
Mexican American artist casts spotlight on diverse identities
The stories of four women from different cultural backgrounds, bright summer colors and symbolic apples in bloom unfolded in the painting behind Teresa Dunn, as she talked about her art to a Central Michigan University audience Thursday.
In her artwork, Dunn captures real people's stories to celebrate their identities. Her exhibition "US." is on display at Barber Room Gallery, Park Library till May 30.
“In part by my heritage," Dunn said. "I'm Mexican American, and that plays a really strong role in the themes that I want to portray because I'm really interested in people of color, immigrants and people with multicultural backgrounds."
Path to acceptance and celebration
Dunn said aspects of her childhood influenced her current artwork as she grew up in a racially mixed family in a largely white community in Southern Illinois. Her mother is Mexican American, and her father is white.
“My features look, I think, racially ambiguous, because from my earliest time I can remember people would ask me where I'm from, what am I and try to play a guessing game of what race they thought I was,” Dunn said. “I knew we were Mexican. But I also thought of myself as American, so it really confused me when people would ask me these questions. ... It made me feel like I don't belong and that I was different.”
When family called Dunn “Teresita,” she didn’t like it because she didn’t want to feel different.
“When people pronounce it wrong, it makes me feel ugly,” she said.
Dunn stopped going by Teresita when she left for the university. However, the uncomfortable questions never stopped.
“People would ask me, ‘Do you like tacos,’” she said. “Just … really hurtful and confusing comments.
"And also, my mom, when I was little, would put my hair into two braids. … As a child, it was something that I intentionally would not (do) when I had the authority over my own hair, then I refused to have my hair braided anymore.”
As an adult, strangers in Michigan still stopped Dunn to ask if she was Native American and where she was from, which gave her a sense of not belonging.
“I always think in the moment I'm going to say something clever or be able to have a good response, but it always surprises me because I still never expect it,” Dunn said. “And I don't know what a good response is. But I know that now I feel less wounded by my difference and embrace it. And I feel like I own my identity more than I than I did and acknowledge the differences and celebrate that.
“I think the questions that people ask like that sometimes they come out of xenophobia," she continued. "Sometimes they come out of a racist place, but sometimes they come out of ignorance. ... People don't really know that it's inappropriate or that it can be hurtful.”
Through her paintings, Dunn started focusing on telling stories of people with similar kinds of struggles -- people of color, immigrants and people with complex cultural backgrounds -- so that they can see themselves being represented and celebrated.
Makayla Dixon, a CMU sophomore who visited the event, said the most beautiful part of Dunn’s art was the representation of diversity.
“I think as a woman of color, it is very important,” Dixon said. “It makes me feel seen and heard.”
Hannah Weaver, also a sophomore studying art, liked the diversity in the paintings as well. Weaver attended the event as an art learning experience.
“I really admire the art. … I do like the use of diversity, and I like how (Dunn) uses her shading, and brushwork is amazing,” Weaver said.
Dunn doesn’t know when she decided to become an artist, but painting has been calling her since a young age.
“I’ve always been a maker, I’ve always drawn and painted, and my parents encouraged me, my teachers encouraged me,” she said.
She first started as math major at Missouri State University, but then, with the support of her parents, decided to do what she likes and take drawing classes. Dunn completed both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in painting. Now she teaches it in the Michigan State University.
Through painting, therapy and connecting with the stories of people in her paintings, Dunn started feeling less lonely and seeing the strength of other marginalized people in the face of challenges.
The "US." project, she said, helped her connect and be vulnerable with others.
"Even though they didn't have my same experience ... I could identify with (them) and we could celebrate each other," Dunn said. "That all really helped me grow."
Identities represented through art
Accepting Mexican American identity, Dunn expressed her heritage in the “Curándome de lo malo” self-portrait, in which she is “curing (herself) of the bad” using ancient Aztec technology of grinding spices.
In the painting, Dunn looks at the viewers while grinding spices with a yellow bird on her elbow and avocado handing above it.
“That curing process is like freeing myself of those bad things -- like from a kid being called dark, being called taco … those comments and questions that weren't very nice," Dunn said. "A lot of impostor syndrome, feeling like I was white for so long and then looking at the mirror and in those photographs the rest of my family's clearly Brown, feel like that imposter syndrome like ‘Am I Mexican?’”
In the self-portrait, Dunn also expressed how she connected to her Mexican heritage: Mexican and Indigenous women were in her heritage family line.
Another painting Dunn talked about was “A Day in the Life of Chemin Hsiao (Allegory of a Sucker Punch),” which was a story of a Taiwanese artist. He was punched in the face on a basketball court in Queens, New York. In the painting, a group of people attacks Asian American community; the background is the basketball court on fire.
Teresa Dunn talks about bringing awarness to the anti-Asian violence through her painting 'A Day in the Life of Chemin Hsiao (Allegory of a Sucker Punch)' Thursday, April 4, at the Park Library's Barber Room Gallery.
“Years later, he didn't know if it was racially motivated, but it always bothered him,” Dunn said. “And when I was starting his painting, there was the shooting in Atlanta at the salon, the mass shooting of primarily Asian victims, and there was a lot of anti-Asian violence.”
As there was a lot of anti-Asian sentiment around the blame of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dunn felt it was important to combine those two stories of violence. She also hid easter eggs in her paintings such as Mandarin language on the road signs in the painting, “45 Avenue” and the sign “Stop All the Way” underneath it, referring to the politics of then-president Donald Trump.
Some other works that Dunn talked about were “Story of My Life: Monifa Roberts (One Eye Open),” which was a story of African American lesbian women who is raising a young boy and is afraid of his future as African American; “The Ballad of Azya Moore (Ode to Zora Neale Hurston)” and the acceptance of her skin color; and the story of Dunn’s four students captured in “Morgan, Megan, Claire, Leah (A Long Line of Women).”
Art Coordinator Denise Fanning said the gallery accepted Dunn’s work because of the diverse stories that she has been telling in her paintings, in which CMU students can also see themselves reflected.
“I think the way that she's allowing individuals to be seen and known and to let their stories be seen and known … (is) really kind giving them this sort of spotlight on their identity,” Fanning said. “I love the way that allows the viewers … to potentially see themselves or their own story or someone that they know reflected in the paintings.
"(It) ... also just gives people an opportunity to have perspective by taking in the stories of other people's lives.”
CMU alumna Madeline Devantier will be next artist displaying exhibition at the Barber Room Gallery, opening June 8.
