BORN: CUBA
I was born in Cuba and that’s both literally and in any other form.
I carry with me a sense of the “grey” because my life was, and still is, full of dualism. You can see it in my art. I am always questioning who I am. Am I black, am I white? Am I Chinese, am I Santera, am I Catholic? There’s questing of apparent opposites going on within me all the time. I’m either both or I’m neither. I’m not really white, and not really black. I see it both ways. I either feel connected or isolated. I carry that sense of the grey with me and it helps me go on about life. I ask: Am I a data base manager, am I an artist? Am I a graphic designer, am I a painter?
I come from a family that, where they are from geographically and their races and religious beliefs and life styles, makes no sense. And yet, it’s a family, my family. That dichotomy of being a mix of everything, of seemingly disparate things, doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t have to. It works for me.
—Ailen Pedraza
I was born in Cuba and that’s both literally and in any other form.
I carry with me a sense of the “grey” because my life was, and still is, full of dualism. You can see it in my art. I am always questioning who I am. Am I black, am I white? Am I Chinese, am I Santera, am I Catholic? There’s questing of apparent opposites going on within me all the time. I’m either both or I’m neither. I’m not really white, and not really black. I see it both ways. I either feel connected or isolated. I carry that sense of the grey with me and it helps me go on about life. I ask: Am I a data base manager, am I an artist? Am I a graphic designer, am I a painter?
I come from a family that, where they are from geographically and their races and religious beliefs and life styles, makes no sense. And yet, it’s a family, my family. That dichotomy of being a mix of everything, of seemingly disparate things, doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t have to. It works for me.
—Ailen Pedraza