Lush Mixed-Media Collages by Clotilde Jiménez Piece Together an Artist’s Lineage
In an interview with Grace Ebert for Colossal, Clotilde Jiménez discusses how his layered collages draw from his Puerto Rican and African-American heritage and the different cities that have shaped his life. Using magazine clippings, Mexican craft paper, fabrics, and woven materials, Jiménez creates dense portraits that explore family, Blackness, masculinity, and cultural memory. Works including China de Mayagüez, The Nightcall, and the Flower Portal series combine autobiographical references with imagery drawn from Puerto Rican traditions and Dutch still-life painting, balancing personal histories with themes of fleetingness and everyday joy.
At the heart of the body of work is Jiménez’s exploration of family silences and the secrets that can shape a person from childhood. He reflects on discovering as an adult that the grandfather who raised him was actually his biological grandfather’s brother, a revelation that gave him a different perspective on his family’s history and experiences of abuse. As Jiménez explains, the exhibition is ultimately about “silence and how that forms us from a young age.”
