Featured Artist: Miguel A. Aragón Issue Fragility 2019.3 SNAPline featured artist: Miguel A. Aragón Miguel A. Aragón is a NYC based artist and educator. His work explores subjects of violence, transient and/or persistent memory, perception and the multiple; he uses erasure as language through the use of processes that are reductive in nature. Aragón received a BFA from The University of Texas at El Paso and a MFA from The University of Texas at Austin. He has exhibited nationally and internationally through solo and group exhibitions at venues including the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs, NY; Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco, CA; International Print Center of New York, NY. Aragón has received numerous awards, including a Fellowship at Kala Art Institute, as well as invitations to Artist Residencies including Zygote press, Ohio; Flatbed Press, Texas; and two in Germany. His work has been published in catalogues and books such as: Peenemünde Project: Geschichte wird Kunst / Imprinting History by Dr. Philipp Aumann and Dr. Till Richter (2017), which catalogues artwork created during a residency at the WWII era power plant in Peenemünde, Germany, where he explored the history of the Nazi-era slave labour missile research centre; and A Survey of Contemporary Printmaking by Matthew Egan, Michael Ehlbeck and Heather Muise (2012). His work is also included in numerous private and public and collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts Boston; National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago; and Minneapolis Institute of Art. Aragón is an Assistant Professor in Printmaking at the College of Staten Island, CUNY. Artist Statement Through my work, I explore subjects of violence, transient and/or persistent memory, perception and the multiple, using erasure as language through the use of processes that are reductive in nature. Representations of the visible will always show residues and traces of the invisible; the images I create connect the spheres of what can be seen and what can be only intuited. Miguel A. Aragón, Retrato No. 18 (Matriz), Hand-drilled paper with layered Xerox, 49 × 36 inches My work is derived from a need to find meaning in distressing events that repositions mortality in our field of vision, reminding us that our physical existence is finite. Any form of erasure, however violently destructive, can be seen as constructive in some way; something comes through the destruction, the negation of an image is not actually nothing. These representations of the corpse seek not to reduce fear; rather, they force the viewer to confront the horror of death and the state of uncertainty and awareness that México is experiencing due to the continued War on Drugs. What I am looking for, as a result of these deletions is not to forget the horrific crimes these images convey; instead, I am searching for an understanding of what has happened by acquiring a sense of catharsis. To see more of Miguel’s work visit: www.aragonmiguel.com Header image: Miguel A. Aragón, Embolsado, Woodcut, 22 × 30 inches