Alumni Cristina Velazquez exhibits in SMateo: “Everything I Must Be”

From the San Mateo County Times

Artist Cristina Velazquez uses recycled dresses to expose women’s reality in the show “Everything I Must Be,” which opens Friday at Avenue 25 Gallery in San Mateo. A reception will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. Jan. 15.

Velazquez feels the imposed cultural roles of motherhood, housekeeper, lover and healer as ghosts which follow her. “I must always be something for someone because I was born a woman,” she says in her Artist Statement.

For her work “Women Must Bear Children,” Velazquez created stuffed dolls and attached them to a dress. Kitchen utensils are the add-on in “Women Must Cook.”

The demands expand as a woman must not only be a good mother and housekeeper, but also “Women Must Be Beautiful,” which Velazquez demonstrated through items such as hair rollers, curling iron, acrylic nails, and makeup attached to a dress. “Women Must Have the Right Measurements” includes measuring tapes, while “Women Must Be Saints” combines such objects as a crucifix, Bible, holy water and scapulars.

In “Women Must Be …” Velazquez has affixed blank tags onto a dress, inviting observers to add their own ideas to the list of “chores that women must ascribe to.”

She sums it up with a question: “I must wear all these dresses as my uniform. I must do as I am told, and I must achieve it all….Or should I?”

Velazquez earned her bachelor of fine arts degree from San Jose State University. Her commissioned work includes the “Altar de La Virgen de Guadalupe” at Saint Francis of Assisi Church in East Palo Alto, completed in 2003, and a mural for Menlo Atherton High School in 1994.

“Everything I Must Be” will continue through March 4. The show was curated by Kim McCool Nelson. Avenue 25 Gallery in on the second floor at 32 West 25th Ave. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. Admission is free. Visit http://avenue25gallery.plsinfo.org.