The Department of Painting + Printmaking presents a visiting artist lecture by
Luis Vasquez La Roche (MFA ’20)
Monday, February 3rd at 12 PM
VCU Oliver Hall – Physical Sciences Wing, room 1024
1001 W. Main St., Richmond, VA 23220
Luis Vasquez La Roche is an artist and educator who resides between Trinidad and Tobago and Virginia. They hold an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and are a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Art and Design at George Mason University in Northern Virginia.
Vasquez La Roche’s practice is interested in aspects of the transatlantic slave trade that repeat themselves in varying ways in the present. Aspects such as labour, death, erasure, oppression, violence, and discrimination are profoundly present. Even though the slave trade dehumanized millions of Black people, with the consequence of continuing to do so in the present, we can find hope, resistance, and resilience. The work also functions as a way to explore the gaps in historical archives and as way of filling the intentional void by summoning and collapsing past, present, and futures. An essential part of the research is an inquiry regarding material, space, smell, and sounds in relationship to personal and historical archives. They employ these materials to articulate aspects of race, identity, culture, politics, and spirituality. These works usually take shape as performances, sculptures, or videos.
