Benjamin Muñoz grew up in the vibrant Chicano culture of Corpus Christi, Texas, which boasts a unique food culture, lowrider shows and the country’s largest Dia De Los Muertos celebration. Now living and working in Dallas, Muñoz’s work spans painting, installation and monumental printmaking, creating art that reflects his heritage, personal experience, and current environment.  For this show, Muñoz created a body of chiaroscuro woodcuts and single-layer woodcuts on gray Pescia paper. “Printmaking has a rich history of being the art of the people, so I think honoring that tradition by making art that speaks to the people is important,” the artist says.    His work in this show remixes traditional motifs with contemporary narratives, drawing on popular imagery from Chicano culture. “Using that traditional imagery to speak about issues of today provides me with the opportunity to discuss issues in a way that is easily digestible for people,” he says.

Muñoz is particularly excited about a series of contemporary lotería cards he’s created. For example, he has reimagined the traditional skull and crossbones depicted on the Calavera card as a memento mori surrounded by images of American life, reminding viewers that earthly pleasures and capitalistic pursuits are ultimately futile. “Our efforts should be focused on leaving a better world for humanity, not exploiting people and resources to advance ourselves and our own capital up until the moment we die,” Muñoz says. Another card he has reinterpreted is La Bota, traditionally shown as a black boot on a yellow background. In Muñoz’s reconception, La Bota shows a pair of shoes surrounded by imagery of the dangerous and challenging journey migrants make in search of a better life for themselves and their families.  The largest woodcut in the show is titled “American Apprehension,” an intricate piece that explores the pressures inherent in American society and the American Dream. It examines the challenges of maintaining extravagant—and often unattainable—global living standards, all while grappling with the declining promise of the American Dream. “At its core, the piece reflects the tension between the ideals we aspire to provide for our families and the systemic pressures that make achieving them increasingly out of reach,” Muñoz explains. 

In many of his prints, Muñoz conveys grand narratives by working on a large scale. “I like the idea that a viewer could stand in front of art that towers over and swallows them,” Muñoz says. He gained an appreciation for large-scale formats while making work about his family, exploring the idea that everything in life depends on someone or something that came before us. “The scale of the work helped me convey the idea of life being so much larger than ourselves,” Muñoz says.  Recently, he has turned the lens of his large-scale work towards telling the stories of pressing social and societal problems, including our failing healthcare system, military overspending and corporate bailouts, neglect of vulnerable communities, and other systemic inequities. The sheer size of these pieces forces viewers to interact with them differently, standing back at a distance to absorb their full impact. “That adds to the narrative as well because I think that’s the same way we can interpret issues today,” Muñoz says. “In order to understand what’s happening right now and the issues of today we need to step back and view the larger historical context.” American Allegories will open at Hecho a Mano on Friday, April 4 and will be on view until April 28.