Artist Statement

Keny De La Peña is a Los Angeles born interdisciplinary artist. He holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in World Arts and Cultures from UCLA. He uses visual and choreographic practices to create spaces where the fragility of history meets the subjunctive, or the world of the imagined. De La Peña weaves together theories from cultural anthropology with practices and influences from Mexican crafts and art forms to create a praxis that explores the tensions between popular culture, folklore, history and myth.

He uses paint, light, movement, the written word, and thread to birth new cosmogonies into existence.

Tal vez vengo del mito, de la memoria vaga Que ronda a través de labios, cuerpos y cristales.
Anacrónico o quizás a destiempo, fuera de tiempo, afuera del tiempo Amalgamación carnosa de él.

Perhaps I come from myth, from a wandering memory that courses through lips, bodies, and shards.Anachronistic or perhaps untimely Out of time, outside of time incarnate amalgamation of it.

Hay detalles que suenan fantasiosos pero que al final no importa si son verdaderos o no, son verdad por su palabra o más bien fidedignos en su fantasía, brindándoles así una verosimilitud.

Cuentos y dichos familiares o de la gestión popular que por la proeza de la vaga palabra se convierten en mitología.

Siento que de ahí se arraiga mi pensamiento

Child of immigrant parents, De La Peña was influenced by the movement of languages and bodies.

By rumors of rosicrucians pursuing his clairvoyant grandmother as a child. Her Powers long gone, but her insight just as strong .

Of freemasons and a great great grandfather slain in the municipal palace in México City. Crimson and cochineal in a bucket, a measure to preserve the lush rugs of the halls.

Influenced by Stories.

There are details that sound fanciful but in the end it doesn't matter if they are true or not, they are true on their word or rather trustworthy in their fantasy, thus providing them with credibility.

Family stories or popular sayings that by the feat of the wandering word become mythology.

I feel that my thought is rooted there