“We strive to showcase works that speak personally to who we are, and you can't really pin us down or put us in a box, which I love.”
— Henry Morales 2023
Home & Heritage
Henry Morales chronicles the essence of family and rest in his three solo exhibitions
Messy coffee tables. Open vitamin bottles. Junk mail and front yard dirt.
In the hands of Guatemalan artist Henry Morales, household items are combined in representation of what “the home” looks like. He can fabricate trash bags and oil paint. Or work in dirt from his parents’ front yard. Either way, Morales is intentional with his choice of materials and proud to share his family and home, a place of rest, through art.
Morales's journey as an artist has been influenced by his upbringing and the experiences of his family—his mom, stepdad, and relatives. Born in 1993, Morales was raised in Los Angeles and then in Las Vegas with his parents, who immigrated to the United States in the late 1980s. “For much of my life, I didn’t feel like I had an input on my own feelings," Morales shared, “but through art, I began to dive into self-reflection, allowing me to analyze who I am and where I come from. Themes of immigration, labor, and the stories of my family became central to my work."
Family photos from Mi Casa Es Mi Casa exhibition.
On his personal website, Morales asks: “What makes a home?” In his most recent solo exhibition titled Mi Casa Es Mi Casa, (my home is my home), Morales creates an immersive installation mimicking his childhood living room in Las Vegas. There’s a sheltered and restful feeling about his exhibition—perhaps facilitated by the worn-out couch and family photos plastered on the walls. A messy coffee table sits in the center, housing assortments of fruit and coupon mail. “Many of the memories my parents and I have is just spending time together around the home,” he said. “The exhibition is a reminder to take pride in those things that make your home uniquely yours—whatever that may look like.”
Surrounding the household items is the heart of the exhibition: Morales’s bulky canvas paintings. He is very intentional with the design of each, picking hues of yellow, orange, and purple because they complement the exhibition’s tonal green—the same color as his living room walls. Morales went into detail about the purpose of his paintings: “Growing up, my parents were always working—my mom was a housekeeper and my dad was a janitor. But I didn’t necessarily see them at their job,” he explained.
Canvas paintings “Ayer fue muy pesado el trabajo" (Yesterday, work was brutal) and "Descansando por un ratito” (Resting for a bit) from left to right.
Morales works from reference photos in his paintings—a practice that is controversial to some artists. But he states the purpose of his art is to “honor the person [he] is depicting.” He challenges himself to bring other materials into his painting, whether that be dirt from his parent’s front yard or newspaper clippings. “What are the other elements that I'm bringing to the table?” he ponders. “Other than the image you see. Yes, you see a person resting, working, cleaning, whatever, but there’s more to that story.
Reference photo and canvas painting of Henry Morales's two cousins "Don Ever & Jeffery" completing stonecutting work at a construction site.
For many Latin American artists, incorporating cultural and personal history into their work feels both like a natural part of the process as well as a responsibility. In Morales’s case, the items from his home are a testament to his family’s labor and a deliberate attempt at browning the “Anglo-Saxon, westernized type of art language that we’re all used to.”
In 2021, Morales received the Creative Arts, Research, and Scholarship (CARAS) grant from Temple University, allowing him to fly back to Las Vegas and analyze the work of his family. At the time, Morales was studying 19th-century labor paintings from France, depicting peasants and a strikingly different lifestyle than the “highbrow aristocrats.” His studies intrigued him, but Morales sought to create a more personal connection with the art. To him, the painted peasants weren’t just “hardworking laborers.” He saw them through the lens of his upbringing: it was the narrative of his family. “I have a deeper relationship with these laborers,” Morales said. “They’re my tíos (uncles), they’re my tías (aunts). They’re my abuelas (grandmas), abuelos (grandpas). My mom, my dad.” Working with the idea of familial labor, Morales accompanied his relatives to their job sites and photographed them for his canvas paintings.
Aquí Chambeando. Here working: the title of his first solo exhibition. Painting from reference photos, Morales depicted the labor-intensive lives of his relatives in this collection, occasionally weaving in trash bags as his element of choice. He attempts to show life outside the sheltered home, highlighting activities and work that render rest invaluable.
Trash bags play a unique role in Morales’s art, as reflected in his collection Living the Dream. They act as a link to his Guatemalan side. After moving to the East Coast for art school, Morales found himself yearning for the “huge Latino population in Los Angeles.” He missed speaking Spanish. He missed his mom’s cooking. It was researching Guatemalan culture that gave him solace, and he discovered the art of Guatemalan textiles. “Why don’t I know more about these textiles? This rich, beautiful culture that is within me, you know?” he asked. “Talking with my mom, I found out that my great grandma comes from a very indigenous background where these textiles derived from.”
Textile pieces made from colored trash bags.
If there’s one thing Morales’s art never lacks, it’s personal touch. He finds a way to link broad culture with his own family’s narrative. Morales observed the intricacies of the textiles and wanted to bring this conversation into his art. “That’s where the trash bag comes into play,” he said. “It’s something that is a connection to my family’s time in the States. My mom is a housekeeper, my dad’s a janitor. I've worked as a janitor—I worked at all these various jobs, and we all have interacted with trash bags one way or another. So there you go. That’s my fiber.” To create a textile-like pattern using the colored trash bags, Morales solders them together. The plastic emits toxic fumes, so he has to work outdoors with proper ventilation. In his piece Recuerdos (Memories), Morales fuses an array of blue, purple, and green bags to create a hazy image of mountains and the sea—naturistic themes that are prevalent in indigenous Guatemalan textiles.
Morales's artistic journey has been marked by a desire to build connections within the Latin American community, particularly in Philadelphia, where he currently resides. He aspires to create a space where fellow Latin American artists can come together and support each other. “I want to build more of that cultural community in Philadelphia,” Morales said. “I see the support and sense of belonging in other cities like L.A. and New York, and I want to foster that familiarity and camaraderie here. It’s about showcasing our works and going against the narratives that society has imposed on us.”
Morales recently curated an art show of his own titled At Rest, harkening back to the theme of his solo exhibition Mi Casa Es Mi Casa. He asked, “How do we rest? How do we recharge in a society that doesn't allow us?” Coming from a background of immigrant parents and recognizing the constant struggle for survival faced by people of color in a working society, Morales delves into the concept of rest and recharge within the Latin American community. The show questions the systems in place that perpetuate the idea that rest is a luxury rather than a necessity. Through their artwork, the artists aim to present a vision of what it looks like to recharge from a lens shaped by their collective experiences as multigenernal Latin American artists.
Throughout his career, Morales strives to “develop an artistic language of his own.” He defines this concept in context of the Latin American Diaspora: “All of us coming from the diaspora have various upbringings, different stories, backgrounds, and we’re all trying to showcase them through our work—we’re trying to make our own language.” He recalled a conversation with Patrick Martinez, a Los Angeles-based artist known for his large-scale wall paintings, where they discussed the importance of creating their own language in art, steering away from the dominant narratives influenced by Western art.
“We strive to showcase works that speak personally to who we are,” he said, “and you can't really pin us down or put us in a box, which I love.”
More Information:
Morales has been working on a series of murals over the summer, and his personal website can be found here: https://henry-morales.com/