Continuing to July 19, 2025
In 2022, Arleene Correa Valencia traveled to Mexico for the first time since her family’s immigration to the United States when she was three. During that trip, the Napa-based artist and DACA recipient visited the National Museum of Anthropology, where the Codice Boturini gripped her attention.
Believed to date from before the Spanish conquest, this 18-foot-long accordion-fold book chronicles the migration of the Mexica (Aztec) people from their mythical homeland, Aztlán, to Tenochtitlán, on the site of present-day Mexico City. Its pictographs recount their travels on foot and by boat, seeking a safe home — a search, the artist realized, contiguous with that of her own immigrant family’s.
Correa Valencia’s “Codice Del Perdedor / The Losing Man’s Codex” takes inspiration from that historic pictorial narrative and national origin story. The surprisingly downbeat title, however, comes from something her father once told her. “Losing is a gift,” he explained, “because it brings opportunities to learn and band with others for mutual protection.” Like the “Codice Boturini,” Correa Valencia’s codex is illustrative of a long and complex narrative. Roiled by economic necessity, shifting immigration policies, and branding as “illegal aliens,” the families and friends she depicts manage nonetheless to reconnect and draw strength from each other.
The exhibition opens with “Casa De La Abuelita / Grandma’s House” (2024), installed somewhat apart from the other works. Using acrylic, textiles, and thread on amate (bark paper), Correa Valencia depicts two children standing under what could be one of the jacaranda trees typical of her family’s home state, Michoacán. Based family snapshots, it suggests the artist’s personal Aztlán, but not hers alone: like all the faces in her work, the children’s are covered with shiny fabric. Thus the artist elides the separation between self and others, between presence and absence.
Five of the dozen works in the exhibition show people on the move. In “Solas Pero Siempre Juntas / Alone But Always Together” (2024), it’s three young women walking together. They are seen from behind, another Correa Valencia tactic for depicting individuals who infer whole communities. One wears a sweatshirt with the logo of the Napa Valley College Associate Degree in Nursing Program (“Caring Strong Dedicated”). Another drapes a cheap hoodie over her head. “El Salvador,” it reads, below two hackneyed iron-on scenes of tropical beaches. The girls’ casual and affectionate gestures convey their reliance on one another.
In contrast, the two figures in “Las Madres Inmigrantes No Se Rajan / Migrant Mothers Don’t Give Up” (n.d.) occupy opposite corners of the bed of a battered Mazda BT-50 pickup with a Salvadoran plate. Only the backs of the couple’s heads and their shoulders are visible. She is outlined with thread; he too is depicted summarily. A soiled bandana and embroidered cloth hang over the tailgate. Are the two mother and son? Are both physically present? Or does one exist only in the mind of the other?
Research shows that those who vilify immigrants tend to assume that they are incapable of deep and subtle feelings like nostalgia and longing. Correa Valencia pushes back not only with her imagery but also the emotionally and culturally resonant materials with which she creates it.
One is repurposed textiles, like the hoodie and the bandana. By recontextualizing cast-off clothing and other materials that her family and others have worn and used, Correia Valencia opens a space for us to connect with their former owners’ real-world lives. In “Si Llega Uno, Llegamos Todos / If One of Us Makes It, We All Make It” (2025), for instance, it’s Dickies workwear and a scrap of a plastic mesh bag that once held California oranges.
The amate paper that is both the support for and a vital formal element in every work is also subtly yet powerfully evocative. Made from the pulped bark of various trees, amate was used for pre-contact codices such as the Codice Boturini. Following the conquest, Spanish authorities systematically destroyed codices and prohibited the use of amate. Yet, passed from one generation to the next, amate-making skills endured. Created by an artist in Puebla, Mexico, the amate which Correa Valencia uses is mottled, tawny, and stunningly beautiful. It also asserts community, indigeneity, and resilience.
These qualities are shared by all the works here, most pointedly the frieze-like images (all 2025) in which the artist widens her visual field to include groups of immigrants confronting the cynically manipulated nativism of MAGA and ICE agents. “I Do Not Give You Permission to Enter My Home Based on My 4th Amendment Rights Under the United States Constitution” and “Sobreviviendo la Persecución / Surviving the Persecution” underscore the exhibition’s timeliness in an era of cruel assaults on undocumented immigrant families. A third, however, envisions a future in which people stroll, hug, shop, and go about everyday living: Finalmente En Casa, it proclaims, Finally Home.
