Heaven Spots: Concept/OK Residency Artist Narciso Argüelles crosses the borders of identity and art by Holly Wall
Narciso Argüelles, Oklahoma City, Milagros, Digital archival print, 11” x 14”
Borders and boundaries are ingrained in Narciso Argüelles’ identity. The Californiaborn, Mexico-raised urban artist and public school teacher, now living and working in Oklahoma City, spent most of his life on one side or the other of the thin line that separates the United States from Mexico. No matter which side of that line he was on, he always got the feeling he didn’t quite fit in.
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American always find their way into Argüelles’ work—mostly urban art created with paint, spray paint, stickers, markers, paper, wood and yarn, decorating walls, billboards, signs, windows, and public transportation, as well as the standard paper and canvas.
“Even though I’m Mexican, the Chicano people who lived on the U.S. side would treat me differently—even though I looked just like them and I spoke English the way they did,” he said. “Ironically, I call myself Chicano now.”
Those ideas will invariably find their way into his residency project for the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition’s (OVAC) Concept/OK: Art in Oklahoma exhibition at the Hardesty Arts Center in Tulsa. His project, Heaven Spots, is named for those “hard-to-reach areas, sometimes high spots on buildings, where socalled street art is done.”
Those ideas about identity, immigration, race and what makes someone Mexican or Mexican-
“The title Heaven Spots has a dual meaning on the street, but I want to re-contextualize the
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meaning, where the viewer can imagine these areas as potential areas to touch the divine or as portals to some far-off place,” Argüelles wrote in his project proposal. Part of his project will occupy the Hardesty Arts Center’s gallery, while other elements will be found in public areas nearby. He plans to work with local artists to create both permanent and temporary murals and other displays of public art on buildings and bridges, while his work inside the gallery will mostly consist of portraits drawn in electrical tape. Though viewers may not immediately realize it, Argüelles is making a political statement through his portraits, drawing faces that don’t always appear prominently—or if they do,