Salvador Jimenez
Salvador Jimenez’s Declaration of Immigrant Rights uses various iterations of the monarch butterfly.
Often known as the “interdisciplinary artist”, Salvador Jimenez-Flores was born and raised in Jamay, Jalisco, Mexico. A father who worked in the Bracero program, he suffered a great deal with employers and traveling back and forth between Mexico and the US, eventually settling in Mexico again where Jimenez was born. Yet the National Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), forced his family to relocate to Chicago in 2000. He realized that coming to the US was not what everyone dreamed about where everything was easy and easy to obtain. He longed for a medium of expression to share these difficulties and discovered them in a photography class in his after school program. This was where his love for the arts first developed.
The title of interdisciplinary comes from the vast amount of training that he received in the arts with a B.A.A. in Graphic Design and Digital Media, and an M.F.A from Kendall College of Art & Design in Drawing. In the nature of a true artist, Jimenez embraces doing anything and creating with what is available to express his thoughts, feelings, and mind.
His main focus with murals in Pilsen was to do work for the community. He witnessed first hand the changes in the community with the battles of gentrification and was inspired by this for his projects and murals like “Declaration of Immigration.” His commitment to spreading these kinds of messages not only to the community, but also those trying to change the city was what grew his involvement in Pilsen. He found that Pilsen was a hub for creativity with so many artists in the area whose response to gentrification was also to create murals to spotlight those living there.
Jimenez’s work focuses on themes of colonization, migration, the concept of “the other”, and futurism by using his interdisciplinary training and mixing socially conscious installations, the public, and studio-based art. All of his creations vary by medium from drawing, ceramics, prints, mixed media sculpture, and of course, murals. Working with various mediums, he felt as though his work was more accessible to audiences beyond what was seen on walls or that were personal to his sketchbook.
Much of his involvement in the community is focused on the community and giving back to them in some way, much as he hopes his artwork does. He’s a member of the Color Network and Instituto Grafico de Chicago - organizations that allow dialogue within the community about social issues and how the arts can be used to share these messages with the people. Jimenez has his works at the National Museum of Mexican Art, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Urban Institute of Contemporary Art, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, and Museum of Art and Design amongst others. As he longed for Latino professors when going to school, he now serves as an Assistant Professor in ceramics at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.