“An American Dollar”

mixed media on paper
24” x 10”
2020
$400

About:
Visually I wanted to communicate that the graphics native to the dollar were more important than a Latino. Images were intentionally painted around banal monetary signage.

This painting was inspired by an incident where I saw a normal kitten in a cage and was deeply disturbed by the picture. As someone who is regularly prioritizing emotional health, I immediately understood why the picture disturbed me. It made me think of the detention centers. The use of cats or pussy is a loose reference to mass hysterectomies taking place there.

The crudity of the stylized Hitler mustache drawn with a sharpie is reminiscent of a high school year book defacing a student’s picture, intentionally evoking the mean girl dynamics of false rumors being circulated. It references our government’s complete betrayal and warped depiction of Latinos as criminals, when studies have found they are good for the economy.

The little girl is lifting her mask up as if to communicate “I’m a human, not an animal, like a cow or chicken meant to be profit off if by detention centers.”

About Rebecca Nabarrete:
Rebecca Nabarrete is a Los Angeles based artist, with a Bachelors from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Painting and Video. Her art work is collage like imagery painted on found paper which is enlarged and informs the narrative. Often occupying the composition is an unnatural juxtaposition, inviting the viewer to psychologize it. Paintings of wild animals and domestic objects on banal paper (often with utilitarian origin) creates a narrative that many times reminds humanity of the inescapable commonality we often share with animals and their instinctual behavior. The humanization of animals invites the viewer to self-reflect, define and perhaps redefine how self aware they are.

The act of taking graffiti from it’s context of vandalism and giving it a stable home is re-creating the American experience of ingesting all the media of mass shootings, racism, corruption and consciously putting kindness back into the world by stripping graffiti of it’s hostility and giving it a home. “In this way I am adopting my new America and giving back a non abusive experience.”