Undershirts and Family History
Mexican artist Luis Manuel Diaz addresses the complexities of post-migration consciousness through images of shared moments in his family.
Sometimes we see older versions of ourselves when looking at our parents, while feeling profoundly different at the same time. In his project “The Grass on The Other Side” Luis Manuel Diaz uses his lens as a mirror, creating an engaging tension between candid scenes and mise-en-scène, poetry and irony, as he looks at himself and his family members.
The photographer’s act of self-representation feels hyper-aware yet sincere. The images of his Mexican family in Yankee suburbia speak about physical proximity, destruction and rebuilding through the phases of life, cultural and religious identity, the importance of knowing where home is and the simultaneous need to free oneself from it.
“The Grass on The Other Side” by Luis Manuel Diaz is on view at
Blue Sky Oregon Center for Photographic Arts until July 2.
