Salvador Jiménez-Flores

Neighborhood: Little Village Racial Justice Issue: Environmental Justice

Bio

Salvador Jiménez-Flores is an interdisciplinary artist born and raised in Jalisco, México. He explores the politics of identity and the state of double consciousness. Jiménez-Flores addresses issues of colonization, migration, “the other,” and futurism by producing a mixture of socially conscious installation, public, and studio-based art. His work spans from community-based work, drawing, ceramics, prints, and mixed media sculpture. Jiménez-Flores has created a series of murals and community-based works, such as The Declaration of Immigration mural in Pilsen created with Yollocali Arts Reach students, Nomadic Sculptures and Tortilla Social with students from Urbano Project in Jamaica Plain, Boston to mentioned a few. His project Arcilla Arte Cultura has been realized in the Little Village neighborhood.

Jimenez-Flores is a member of The Color Network, an organization that promotes the advancement of people of color in the ceramic arts and assists artists develop, network, and create dialogue while maintaining a place for a database, resources, and mentorship. He is also a member of the Instituto Gráfico de Chicago, an organization inspired by the socio-political art of Mexico’s Taller de Gráfica Popular (The People’s Print Workshop) and uses art as a platform to inform and generate community discourse about urgent social issues.

Jiménez-Flores has presented his work at the National Museum of Mexican Art, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Urban Institute of Contemporary Art, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, and Museum of Art and Design amongst others. He served as Artist-In-Residence for the city of Boston, Harvard Ceramics Program, Office of the Arts at Harvard University, and Kohler Arts Industry. Jiménez-Flores is a recipient of Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grants and The New England Foundation for the Arts, Threewalls’ RaD Lab+Outside the Walls Fellowship Grant, and he is a 2021 United States Artist Fellow. He is an Assistant Professor in ceramics at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Works

Participating family receiving their ceramic kit

A family portrait of a mom and daughter pose outside their home in Little Village holding a cardboard box containing tools and clay.

Unpacked work created by a participant

Unfired work created by a participant is unpacked and ready to loan into the ceramic kiln. The work is a series of tiles and small sculptures.

Participant’s artwork

A self portrait of the artist is depicted on a ceramic jar. Next to it is a girl with monarch butterfly wings on top of a CTA bus.