"Sacred Heart of Mango"

Sacred Heart of Mango

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This is from my new water-coloring series called “Sacred Heart of Mango.”  Below is my short artist bio and artistic statement.  I had fun writing these!

Cristina Golondrina Rose, Artist

Short Bio

Cristina is the daughter of Debra of Los Angeles and grand-daughter of Priscilla of New Mexico and Concepcion of the Philippines.

A writer and artist, Cristina was born in LA and is now a PhD student in Pinay-xicana mestiza spirituality, literature, and art.  She has taught English and organized women’s empowerment circles at CSU, Long Beach.  She also worked on sustainable farms.  Currently, she volunteers for the Center for Babaylan Studies and the San Francisco Asian Art Museum’s annual Fil-Am celebration.  While completing her dissertation, she engages with water-colors in order to speak to her Filipina-Xicana multiplicity.

Artistic Statement

Sacred Heart and Mango

Juicy, sweet, and altogether amazing, mangos are a sacred fruit among Pinays and Pinoys.  This spiritual connection to mangos for Filipinas and the long history of mangos both in the Philippines as well as Mexico got me thinking.  As a Pinay-Xicana, I’ve worked to understand the shared religiosity, spirituality, and culture between my ancestral ethnicities.  However, I needed an image that integrated these multiplicities in a way that the written (linear and dualistic) language, particularly English, cannot.  Enter the sacred heart of mango.

Painting these beautiful images is a ceremony for me.  The gold, red, blue, and green colors are the diction I employ to tell this story of merging families and emerging cultural transformation.