Irene Perez
¡AnDALE Pues Piñata! (4of14) (rags), 2025
Paper-mache sculpture
Bio
Irene Perez is a Detroit-based artist and educator working in textiles, sculpture, and installation. Drawing from her Mexican heritage, family histories, labor, migration, and cultural memory, her practice brings together quilts, piñatas, reimagined clothing, and objects connected to her upbringing in a family restaurant. Her work extends into teaching, curating exhibitions, and organizing arts programming in Southwest Detroit. At Mexicantown CDC Galería, she has worked with artists, youth, and community members to develop exhibitions, workshops, and collaborative projects. This year, she will begin a teaching artist residency with ProjectArt at the Detroit Public Library. Across her practice, she is committed to supporting artists, building relationships, and creating opportunities for people to learn and make together. Perez holds an MFA in Fiber from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BFA from the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art & Design.
Statement
My work begins with what has stayed with me. The piñata. The quilt. The zoot suit. Restaurant uniforms, aprons, and objects tied to service work. Denim worn thin through labor. Flags that promise belonging while also marking its limits. I return to these forms because they carry histories larger than themselves, histories of migration, family, celebration, work, separation, and survival.
I work through textiles, installation, and sculpture, building with materials that already hold meaning. Rather than transforming them beyond recognition, I allow them to bring their own weight into the work. Sewing becomes a way of spending time with these histories. Through repetition, accumulation, and repair, materials are joined together while their seams remain visible. I am interested in what is passed down, even when it is not spoken. The ways stories move through objects. The ways labor leaves traces on the body. The ways distance can shape a family for generations. Much of the work grows from the Mexican American experience, but it also grows from questions of inheritance, memory, and what remains after something has been carried for a long time. I do not look for resolution. I build spaces where contradiction can exist, where materials hold what cannot always be said, and where the things that stay with us continue to take form.
Please note: All artworks will remain on display through January 31st after which purchased works will be available for pick up at BasBlue - 110 East Ferry Street, Detroit. (unless alternate arrangements have been made). For questions contact: info@basblueus.com