Jazmine Puentes

Jazmine Puentes is an artist born and raised in the southeast region of San Diego, California on occupied Kumeyaay Land. She creates work in her studio within the community of Logan Heights where her creativity flows with mixtures of colorful acrylics as her preferred medium of practice. Her work has been exhibited both locally and nationally, that includes Centro Cultural de La Raza, Chicano Park Museum, Self Help Graphics and Art, Avenue 50 Studio, Plaza de La Raza, El Chante Casa de Cultura and more. Jazmine also enjoys creating work from her roots of musical influences, personal interests, and other subjects of importance.

“Revitalize Spirit” is in honor of all life’s creations that nurture the human body both physically and spiritually. Highlighting the importance of indigenous food ways, food accessibility, food sovereignty, and traditional agricultural food systems. These are interconnected to preserving cultural practices and protecting indigenous land. Environmental change in the hands of greed restricts the accessibility which erases knowledge for future generations. Destroying nature disrupts the living beings in their ecological systems that serve great importance in preservation. This interferes in having a relationship to the land and its resources that hold sacred practices, ancestral medicine, and cultural information. Creating this piece is expressing the feeling of awakening, restorative, and reconnection of the self with the land.

Puentes is an acrylic painter whose work interprets an introspective exploration of self-transformation and the complexities of internal development, weaving together narratives drawn from her life experiences and upbringing. She instills the influences of her cultural beliefs to create dreamy cosmic landscapes by integrating all forms of nature and living beings. They are utilized in her paintings to uplift their importance meanwhile reconnecting the relationship to her cultural identity. Their symbolism in her work is offering a visual homage in honoring the land, ancestors, people, and loved ones. Each piece has their own individual meaning or significant message from a personal point of view that capture emotions and highlight an important moment in time. Altogether, her vibrant collection speaks about the internal struggles of grief, the process of healing, celebrating life, and the contrast between life and death.