Miles Morales, Laura Kinney and Jamie Reyes have redefined iconic superhero mantles by infusing their masks with the nuances of Latinidad. Gabe Garcia and Micha Bornstein’s “Borders, Bleeds, Margins and Gutters” explores the dynamic between Latino identities and the comic book form. The exhibit is on display at the San Antonio Centro De Artes, located at 101 S. Santa Rosa, until Aug. 17, free of charge to the public.
The title is a double entendre. It refers to aspects of immigrant stories and technical terms for the layout of a comic book. Throughout the exhibit, panels connotate each word with its comic-book and immigrant-narrative definition.
“Borders, Bleeds, Margins and Gutters” offers a space to artists and works that may otherwise be overlooked in the mainstream art scene. The exhibit shares work that goes against the grain and hopes to inspire a new generation of artists and storytellers.
“I’m starting to see more and more of those voices kind of represented in the gallery space — in public space,” exhibit curator Gabe Garcia says. “Being able to see work by artists that represent themselves, their city, their culture and their heritage and to have other people exposed because it’s more available is a wonderful thing to see. It’s also very motivational for other people to see the artists that are here now.”
A splash from Frederick Luis Aldama’s “Steampunkera Chronicles” lines the back wall. A diverse group of Latina women fill the panel. Many are aided with a steampunk arsenal, distorting technology of the past, present and future to form something entirely new. One character, notably, rides through the sky using crutches equipped with jetpack technology. Below the splash, lie four pages from Aldama’s series. The characters bleed outside of the panel onto the gutters of the page. The initial pages set the story in San Antonio, with a slave auction occurring in front of the Alamo. The other three pages tell the story of a friendship ending and its reconciliation for the greater good.
“I imagined this whole story and adventure taking place in the middle of the 19th century in Mexico, but it would be hemispheric,” says Aldama. “The adventures would take place in all of these different spaces, and each would pivot around a piece of history that happened and was either subdued or the history of it was told from a white or very masculine point of view.”
The stories told in “Borders, Bleeds, Margins and Gutters” do not center an Anglo narrative. Instead, they cater to the re-emerging and rediscovered Latino voice in comics and art.
Latinidad consists of intersectional stories. There is no singular narrative or identity marker. Instead, the Latino is at a crossroads. Aldama explores the borderlands through his combination of history and the speculative.
“So with‘Steampunkeras,’ I’m going to go back into history,” comments Aldama. “I’m going to take my science fiction brain, and I’m going to plug that — going back in time — and bring in this really cool steampunk technology that’s also based on Mesoamerican design and innovative technologies.”
Mesoamerican folklore is a through-line in “Borders, Bleeds, Margins and Gutters.” Gonzalo Alvarez displays his “NAWALLI: The Aztec Card Game.” The card game is akin to Pokemon; however, the characters depicted on the cards are all based on Aztec mythology and are taken from the Codex Borgia. Alvarez hopes to release expansion packs and eventually include every character from the codex in his card game.
The exhibition will continue to be on display at the Centro De Artes until Aug. 17. The gallery is open Wednesday through Friday from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday through Sunday from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. It is closed on Monday and Tuesday. On July 10 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., the gallery will host an artist talk on “Borders, Bleeds, Margins and Gutters.”
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