Luján
loo - HAHN

María Isabella Luján is a Latinx artist based in Richmond, Virginia. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University. She is a co-founder of Studio For Us, a website for uplifting BIPOC craft artists.

Through primarily sculptural metal smithing, she explores the many sides of relationships, family, and heritage. This storytelling is bolstered by a use of representational imagery based on her own Mexican-American upbringing and culture.

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Artist Statement

My art practice is only possible because of the people and communities that uplifted me and allowed me to create. These loved ones are the same ones I create work about. Though this love I hold doesn’t stop in my own hands. I want to love them honestly while understanding their humanity. How they view the world and how the world views them. Since they do not exist in a vacuum, neither can the art. It can’t overlook the privilege and circumstances that allow for its existence.

I have the same sentiment towards the metal I work with. Metal smithing relies on a deep understanding and acceptance of its nature. Will it move with me, or will it resist me? This relationship includes understanding its past. Whose hands did it pass through before reaching mine?

The colonization for precious metals is part of my Mexican heritage. I am a descendant of the colonized and the colonizer. I feel a responsibility to reckon with this past and study the history of exploitation of Latin America. After all, I've benefited from it. You’ll find traces of that past in my aesthetic, opting to fit the more traditional western standards of finish. Since it is what I learned was beautiful.
I want to know the world for all that it is. Not shying away from its darkness in blind pursuit of light. To do so would be unfair to those who suffer in the present. It’s in these complex histories that I find the most sincere stories of resilience, protection, and, of course, love.