Founding artist: LETICIA BAJUYO
Doily Trivet, 2022
Resin, artificial turf, wood, and paint
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Compassion and empathy fuel my studio production, in which I combine disparate objects and remnants of past yearnings and reassess their current silence. Materials like used domestic items and artificial turf migrate from one role to another in search of harmony as I fashion them into aesthetic visions where everything convincingly fits together. However, the ease and coordination of the form and design contains and occasionally reveals the reality of struggles, pressures, fears, and disappointment within.
Doily Trivet started with a traditional cast iron trivet used in kitchens for functional and decorative purposes. I created replicas in cast resin hand sanding each to fit together into a seemingly symmetrical doily. My artworks are crafted to be desirable while being self-reflexively critical at heart removing function and reflecting on issues of identity and value that emphasize the relationship between longing and belonging.
A Filipinx-American interdisciplinary artist and object maker based in Oklahoma, Leticia R. Bajuyo started creating in rural Midwest flyover communities. Bajuyo received her B.F.A. from the University of Notre Dame and her M.F.A. from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
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Bajuyo is a member of the dynamic and inclusive faculty at the School of Visual Arts at The University of Oklahoma. Prior to this professorship in Oklahoma, she served as an Associate Professor at Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi, a Visiting Assistant Professor in Sculpture at the University of Notre Dame, and Professor of Art at Hanover College.
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Her recent solo exhibitions include the Beatrice M. Haggerty Gallery in Dallas, Texas; Beeville Art Museum in Beeville, Texas; Hall Art Gallery at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi; and Rudolph Blume Fine Art / ArtScan Gallery in Houston, Texas. Bajuyo's large-scale, site-specific artworks include creating installations at the From Waste to Art Museum in Baku, Azerbaijan; in the silos of the Site Gallery at Sawyer Yards in Houston, Texas; at the Nashville International Airport in Tennessee; and in the Tony Hillerman Library in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
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​In addition to exhibitions of her individual artwork, Bajuyo seeks community and welcomes collaboration by participating in artist collectives and serving on the Boards of Directors for the Mid-South Sculpture Alliance and Public Art Dialogue.