Secret City 2023 - An exhibition by Juan Miguel Ramos (Saturday Reception)

Artist Statement: 

Throughout the course of my art career, I have been interested in the juxtaposition of modes of representation. What does the viewer think is more real, engaging or important; the supposedly objective machine-generated image or the subjective hand-drawn portraits? These combinations, of photos of places around San Antonio and freehand portraits of locals, collectively provide a kind of civic portrait. Is it the people that make the place or the place that makes the people?

 I, originally, made the first Secret City suite in 1999 as a body of work that I used to apply to grad school. The comic book style, photo-based Sharpie drawings included text that, in part, questioned the lack of representation of Mexican-Americans in mainstream media at the time. The next Secret City suite was made as illustrations of characters in Jimmy Mendiola’s 2003 film Speeder Kills. 

This addition to the series is called Secret City 2023 and it has two main components: 1. the “comic book covers” that are full-color, framed, inkjet prints and 2. the “supplemental content” that is accessible through the provided QR code.

 I’m thinking of the framed work as a metaphor for social media and what people would like to present of themselves while the digital online content is a representation of the reality behind the façade.