Label Type
Object LabelLabel
Yvette Mayorga (b. 1991)
A Vase of the Century 1 (After Century Vase c. 1876), 2019
Acrylic on canvas
Collection of DePaul Art Museum, Art Acquisition Endowment Fund, 2020.1
Yvette Mayorga uses cake-decorating tools to apply acrylic paint, evoking frosting, sugar, and celebration. Yet beneath the seemingly saccharine indulgence of the colorfully-piped surfaces of her canvases are cleverly concealed and complex stories of immigration, labor, and identity. A Vase of the Century 1 (After Century Vase c. 1876) is based on a ceramic urn by Union Porcelain Works that commemorated the first one hundred years of the United States. Mayorga reflected on this work as a means of engaging with histories of colonialism by replacing traditional imagery with her own iconography. For example, Mayorga’s pink cars allude to her father hiding in a vehicle to cross the U.S. / Mexico border in the 1970s, as well as childhood notions of femininity, such as pink Barbie cars. The central figure in a baseball cap stands for all immigrants, who are also depicted in four framed scenes recalling news footage of the U.S. / Mexico border wall and women fleeing Border Patrol.