Erica Enriquez
Bio: Erica Enriquez (b. 1997, Newburgh NY) is a multidisciplinary artist based in New York City. Erica received her BFA in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2019 and is currently an MFA student with a concentration in Expanded Practice | Sculpture. Erica has shared her work in various spaces such as museums, galleries, music venues, theaters, comedy clubs, wrestling rings, parks, and dumpsters across the east coast. Her work considers sculpture, video, photography, painting, and sound as collaborators for performance. She is also the leader of the rock band CHOO CHOO, which is available on all streaming platforms.
ericaenriquez.com
website choochooband.bandcamp.com
Instagram @reeeqi
Instagram @choochooband
Thesis Exhibition
Artist Statement: The word peel suggests a removal—an intermediary, protective sheet, or covering that is able to contain or reveal what lies beneath. A layer, skin, or mask, to be discarded, though essential to the processes of both growth and repair. I use performance to combine familial mythologies with the complicated cultural and geopolitical material histories of my sculptures, in order to speak to the multiplicity and hybridity of being a mixed race, queer person in America. I draw from my family roots in dentistry and generational food traditions through the collection of food scraps and discarded dental equipment. These elements function as surrogates in my work, narrating passed down oral history tales of migratory resilience, resourcefulness and play. I often use humor in my work, and consider the ways in which joy can operate as a tactic of political resistance. Through this process of telling and re-telling, I engage with an iterative practice which treats permutation and sampling as an act of preservation and regeneration. As I combine mediums and processes to create my work, my practice remains still-moving. Between the spaces of objects, and the gums of my teeth, I carry intention, hopefulness, and possibility within the boundlessness of creation—that everything ever made was once imaginary, and made into belief.
Erica Enriquez
Guard Dog, 2024
Electronic toy dog, banana peels, flyswatter, cotton thread, AA battteries, and masking tape
Courtesy of the artist
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If Worms Could Kiss the Sun, 2024
Automobile tires, acrylic paint, oil paint, nuts, bolts, washers, rope, chain, fabric, wood, screws, paper, tape, plasticine clay, dental gloves, sand, tap shoes, socks, tights, polyfiberfill, wider wear, candlewax astroturf, sneakers, suspenders, chicken wishbone, banana peels, and cotton thread
Courtesy of the artist
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I Know Just What You Ah Are, 2024
Cardboard, oil paint, acrylic paint, confetti, masking tape, house paint, oil pastel, and nails
Courtesy of the artist
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PEELS, 2024
Banana peels, cotton thread, metal wire, and nails
Courtesy of the artist
First Year Exhibition
Erica Enriquez
Altsara's Speaker, 2023
Cotton fabric, buttons, tap shoes, sponge, wire, mini acrylic bubble level, gaming headset, air-dry clay, paint rollers, masking tape, paper, astroturf, expanded wire mesh, hose valve, balloons, pipe cleaners, air pump, bluetooth speaker, wire, wood, spray foam
48" x 60" x 36"
Courtesy the artist
