Artists on death, grief, and cancer [Honoring Hispanic Heritage Month]

Artists on death, grief, and cancer [Honoring Hispanic Heritage Month] 
Burnaway; by Carolina Ana Drake; 9/17/24
... Living in Miami and raising my toddler in this city, I’ve discovered artists who similarly lost a parent to cancer. Many, like me, happen to be the children of immigrants. Their works exemplify challenging, at times experimental, art that doesn’t fit the glitzy, market-driven Miami narrative. Through conversations and email exchanges, I learned more about how these artists transformed the darkness and grief of that period into something beautiful that is worth sharing with others. [Click on the title's link to see photos from the following exhibits.]

• Gabino A. Castelán, The Enigma of Grief: My Mother, My Grandmother, Cesar Chávez, 2021 
• Installation view of You might sleep, but you will never dream by Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova, 2009, at David Castillo Gallery, Miami, Florida. 
• Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova, An Open Door, 2009, at the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University (FIU). 
• The Dream of Ometecuhtli by Gabino A. Castelán, 2023, Mahara+Co, Miami, Florida. Image courtesy of the artist and Mahara+Co, Miami, Florida.
• Gabino A. Castelán, The Sweeper and Fruit Vendor Meeting the Ghost of Berta Caceres…Her Ghost is Staring at Us, 2021
• Lanise Howard, Walks of Transformation, 2023.
• You Are Always Here by Catalina Jaramillo, 2011, Dimensions Variable, Miami, Florida. 

... "Seeing these artists transmute the darkness of loss into tangible, sometimes luminous, artworks, I wonder if they walk lighter now." ... Poet Audre Lorde, who went through a fourteen-year cancer journey before meeting death at fifty-eight, writes, “Living a self-conscious life, under the pressure of time, I work with the consciousness of death at my shoulder, not constantly, but often enough to leave a mark upon all my life’s decisions and actions.”