STEFANIE YANONG FERNANDEZ
Akong Sangre (2024)
Mixed media: gouache, sharpie, alcohol markers, colored pencil
20” x 16”
$150
ARTIST STATEMENT:
The Philippines was passed around to so many different empires, losing pieces of our own culture along the way. When the Spanish came, we were stripped of our names, written language, and religion. Since Spain left in 1898, the Philippines has been occupied by both America and Japan. Many old Filipinos express deep resentment toward the Japanese for the war crimes enacted during WWII. Today, the son of an old dictator sits in the presidential office, allowing for American military bases to be occupied and the Philippines to be a pawn in the proxy war of America vs. China. Should these countries war, I fear that smaller countries will serve as the battleground for larger countries to fight. My piece features a Filipina woman with Batok tattoos from mixed provinces, covered in sampaguita bush, floating above visual representations of our past occupations: a Spanish warship from the 1500s, and Japanese style finger-waves.
ARTIST BIO:
Hi! I’m Stevie, a 25-year-old tattooer who is also a full-time musician. I’m a biracial Filipino-Cuban American (my father being an orphan, much of my cultural lens is informed by being Filipino), born and raised in Chicago. My mom is a native Cebuana that immigrated to this country in the 80’s. I didn’t grow up with much money, but my mother’s siblings all had opulent lifestyles that made me feel class separation from a young age. My father would do everything growing up to make us feel rich. He’d paint giant murals of my latest cartoon fixations in each new apartment we’d move to and let me color in his lines. As I got older, around 9 years old, he let me tattoo him and my mom, which led to my later obsession with the history of tattoo culture, influencing much of my art to this day.
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