Meet Jose Guadalupe Sanchez Iii | Interdisciplinary Artist / Assistant Professor

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jose Guadalupe Sanchez Iii and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jose Guadalupe, why did you pursue a creative career?
As a young child, I was fascinated by drawing and painting. As a result, I practiced extensively and achieved a level of technical skill that earned me considerable praise. I gained elementary-level aesthetic capital and enjoyed a great deal of friendly and familial celebration. This positive reinforcement encouraged me to continue on this path, especially when compared to my other academic pursuits, which did not receive the same recognition. I believe this set me on a strong path, reinforcing my passion for the arts, as it provided both social and personal meaning. Since then, I have achieved many professional milestones in the arts, including solo exhibitions and becoming an assistant professor of painting and drawing.
As a fully realized multidisciplinary artist and educator, I now pursue art as a method of social exploration and intervention. For example, my creative work and research provide me with a platform to challenge the passive internalization of predatory ideologies, such as those found in our hyper-capitalist, neoliberal society.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Core questions that ground my artistic and pedagogic practices are: “How are specific value systems created? How are certain value systems reproduced? And how do value systems change?” Through my painting practice, I explore value systems that weave in and out of the Mexican American experience, particularly in Los Angeles. For example, I investigate settler colonial forms of representation that perpetuate belief (value) systems around notions of authenticity (i.e., how one should speak, act, look, etc.). I paint figures using Western techniques who are part of the Mexican diaspora in multilayered environments to challenge the Western drive to place and categorize people in linear time, suggesting a more complex existence than superficial cultural associations. Other projects examine food with similar historical complexities in multilayered settings.
A more recent project invites personal narratives around challenging antiquated beliefs, what I call my “Hard Eye Roll” series. Each portrait in the series is of a participant doing a eye-roll accompanied by a text of their personal narrative. Ultimately, I hope to foster a self-reflexive conversation, as a nepantlero (as theorized by Gloria Anzaldúa), being of Mexican and American culture, simultaneously pointing to our perceptual foundations and influences while expressing alternative ways of being. After all, Euro-American cosmologies, including our ideas of how to think about our relations, are not universal and could be argued to be potentially harmful.
As a professor, I aim to apply the same research inquiries to foundation and advanced painting and drawing courses. The goal is to decentralize Western-Euro practices of creative expression as universal standards and to study how these practices came to dominate art history, aesthetics, and culture. Without dismissing their conceptual and technical contributions, I want students to recognize these practices as select tools among many and to intentionally choose the strategies that best fit their self-reflexive expression.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
The depends on who is visiting of course but these are safe:
-Hammer museum
-Maxines diner
-Ek valley Restaurant
-LACMA
-Elysian Park
-LA state Historic
-Homegirl Cafe
-Really, just walk around and take public transportation and be kind and considerate when visiting other spaces.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would like to thank my family, upon whose shoulders I stand. First and foremost, I want to express my gratitude to my mother and two brothers: Lucia Sanchez, Chris Rois, and Steven Rios. I am also deeply grateful to my grandmothers, uncles, aunts, and cousins, whose love and support have been a constant throughout my life.

I would like to thank my high school art teacher, as well as my undergraduate and graduate professors, who believed in my practice and my humanity. I also want to acknowledge my close friends who have encouraged and supported me throughout this journey. I want to thank my colleagues for their support as well.

Lastly, I want to honor my ancestors for setting in motion the privilege of life that I have today, and to all my relations who make this life possible.

Website: https://www.joseguadalupesancheziii.com/

Instagram: @theotrajose

Image Credits
photo credit for my artist portrait: Lanisha Cole