Artist John Miranda’s first exhibition blends the disparate worlds of South Texas and Dallas

John Miranda left a life as an elementary school teacher shortly before his first art exhibition last month. Before making this decision, he worked in construction. It is arguably a brave and risky move for a relatively new artist.

Miranda, 41, says he quit his job teaching kindergarten art and collapsed immediately after delivering the news to his boss. He also says he has “nothing to lose”.

Seeing the cohesion and fully realized nature of Miranda’s multimedia artwork in Movidas: New Work, viewers may be surprised that this is his first exhibition.

Miranda’s use of the symbolic and comfortably flat two-dimensional style of Chicano-influenced artwork speaks for his southern Texas upbringing in Del Rio on the Mexican border. He mixes these images with signs of the more urban lifestyle that he adapted to in Dallas, where he eventually moved.

John Miranda’s 2020 work “I’m All Over the Place” is among his artworks on display at Cluley Projects through June 26th.(Kevin Todora)

“I didn’t realize at the time that this art style came from the Texas prisons,” says Miranda. “I didn’t know that as a child, but it influenced me a lot. I remember there were white t-shirts that they were selling. That was very popular. The … youth would only want to wear white t-shirts with pictures of Cholos or a prison tower or some ladies and the like. I took that away a lot. I would draw that all the time. With pencil or pen or whatever was there. I would draw on the back of my books, this blank canvas that’s on the back. “

John Miranda’s play “Pink Surfer” from 2019 is one of the works he completed as a part-time artist. Before that he worked in the construction industry and as a primary school teacher.(Kevin Todora)

Miranda’s large-format sculptures literally and allegorically reflect the rough desert landscapes of his childhood. Rock formations share the space with adult figures who represent the vultures, lizards and curanderos – or shamans – of his youth.

The insignia of his current domesticity mix with the more spiritual images. He often returns to lamps and ashtrays that he collects. He calls the ashtray something of a silent marker of social history – he remembers driving a DART bus and smoking with friends as a teenager. He describes the lack of animals in the barren world of the border areas. “[It’s] like a form of meditation, ”says Miranda. “You can just be alone and be alone with your thoughts.”

The artist sold a popular mid-century modern couch to turn his Fort Worth apartment into a full-time art studio. He necessarily divides the larger pictures into triptychs and diptychs and paints on tabletops. He recognized the intentionality of the resulting breaks in the work.

Cluley Projects will be curating a wall at the Park House Social Club in Highland Park Village this summer, and the gallery plans to show some of Miranda’s work. The experience was an overnight crash course for Miranda. Seeing his couch resold by an Instagram savvy client for a profit of $ 900 also got the soft-spoken Miranda to take the plunge on his current show.

“My head was ticking: ‘Man, you can do that,’” says Miranda. “’You can make things like that. You can sell it. You don’t have to go back to construction. You don’t have to be stressed. ‘ I want my freedom. I want to live from what I like to do. Hopefully that will happen. “

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John Miranda’s “Movidas: New Work” is on view through June 26th at Cluley Projects, 2123 Sylvan Ave., Dallas. Wednesday to Saturday from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. and by appointment. 469-615-5214. cluleyprojects.com.

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