Raquel Gutierrez
Artist’s Quote
Nacho died the Friday before Hypanthium opened. Rafa and I had been communicating about Nacho, hoping the San Lázaro candle would right this wrong, praying that it would never arrive at this hole-in-the-universe kind of loss. Losing the Chronos of our queer underground who swallowed his children out of protective fervor—the joto maricón bear of a dad whose smile and sweaty, hairy arms held you for as long as you needed to be held, metabolizing you into the vastness of queer possibility.
Nacho.
Gutierrez, Raquel. “Baby Themme Anthems: On The Work of Sebastian Hernandez.” Open Space, SFMOMA, May 2019.
Luminary’s Quote
hypanthium opens today @calartsredcat and runs thru till the 28th / ready yrself LA yr bout to see all this brownskin shine. – Ignacio “Nacho” Nava Jr.
Nava, Nacho. Instagram post, July 25, 2018.
Bio
Raquel Gutiérrez is a writer, artist and educator working through a variety of idioms to reflect upon queer brown life in the Southwest borderlands. They work in a range of topics that have continued to inform their writing and teaching, including critical race theory, Queer and Latinx aesthetics, and performance art in the Americas. Raquel’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in NPR Music, Places Journal, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Georgia Review, and The Texas Review. Raquel’s first book of prose, Brown Neon, will be published by Coffee House Press in the Spring of 2022.