Alumna embraces inner conflict, Mexican-American heritage through her artwork

by Cat Cardenas | The Daily Texan

Opening excerpt from article:
Ripped from the headlines, brutal stories of drugs, war and murder on the border became the subjects of alumna Natalia Anciso’s series “Flora and Fauna.”

One of the pieces, “Madre y Hijos,” shows a grieving mother kneeling over the bodies of her sons, both covered in delicate flowers drawn in orange, red and purple colored pencils. The subjects in each piece of the series are carefully sketched in graphite, fading into the background as viewers first focus on the vibrant colors. 

Anciso said the contrast between the harsh and the delicate, the beautiful and the painful, represents the complexity of being from the border. Raised in the small town of Mercedes in the Rio Grande Valley, Anciso’s family had been in the area for generations.