Teresa Magaña Builds Space For Culturally Resonant Expression

Written by Vocalo Radio on July 7, 2023

Self-taught Chicago artist Teresa Magaña channels her Mexican and Chicana roots to create stunning pieces of artwork. As an activist, she hopes to provide space and resources to artists in the Pilsen community and beyond.

Teresa Magaña is a Chicago-based artist who dedicates much of her time energy to supporting local and international creative communities. Magaña is the co-founder of Pilsen Arts & Community House, or PACH (pronounced “patch”), a nonprofit gallery space offering emerging artists resources and connections. PACH acts as a dynamic platform, promoting local artists and fostering community engagement while nurturing creativity within the Pilsen community and beyond. By hosting exhibitions, classes, workshops and other activities, they actively contribute to the preservation of cultural traditions and artistic expression, and give creators a supportive space to learn and practice their craft.

“I tell people all the time, this space is not ours; it is yours, it is the community’s,” she expressed. “What do you want to see come out of this space?”

^{Teresa Magaña stands outside of Pilsen Arts & Community House on a sunny summer day in Chicago. Ari Mejia/Vocalo Radio}

Magaña’s deep connection with her Chicana heritage shines through all facets of her work — whether as a mixed media artist, educator, curator or community organizer — serving as a profound exploration of her identity. She pointed out her work draws inspiration from traditional Day of the Dead themes and motifs, and takes notes from the rich history of Chicago sign painters.

“The best way I can describe it, it’s a lot of line work symmetry, just to show how we flourish, just like a flower,” she explained. “It’s always in that process, finding connections of my own lineage of females, in our families through my ancestors. I feel like we do come from very strong mujeres, strong chingonas … I feel like there’s this connection with how Latina women are viewed in this very central way, oftentimes.

“But we’re more than just that, right? There’s a lot of history of why we’re so beautiful.”

^{Artwork by Teresa Magaña, courtesy of the artist.}

Magaña feels proud and humbled to have both her artwork and community outreach recognized by the public, and to be a part of crucial conversations amid a constantly-changing sociopolitical climate. For this segment of “This Is What Chicago Sounds Like,” Teresa Magaña discusses her artwork, connection to her roots and her work with Pilsen Arts & Community House.

When did you get into making art?

I became an artist much later in life, I was in my early 30s. My kids were a big motivation as well, because my art revolves around my Mexican and Chicano culture so I wanted to make sure to keep them immersed and connected with that. I feel like my artwork connects to more of my roots. Because being connected to the idea of what the life and death cycle is, and how, in Mexican culture, we embrace that idea and … we’re not afraid of it, that opened up a lot of thoughts into just kind of my path in my life and not to be afraid to do anything, because you can reinvent yourself in one lifetime. And I feel like I’ve done that a number of times.

Can you describe your work to us?

I started with a lot of Día de los Muertos motif, style, influence. There’s a lot of line work, a lot of swirls, a lot of curls. And that evolved into more of like a pinstriping style of art that I taught myself how to do with one shot enamel, which is what sign painters use. And in Chicago, the sign painters’ history is a very deep-rooted thing, too. Being the Chicagoan I am, I was like, “I’m gonna learn this.” That evolved from painting calaveras and doing Day of the Dead style art, into now exploring more of the femme body and imagery. I’ve kind of worked my way from the complete internal part of ourselves, of our skeleton, out to our outwardly form and human body. But it’s a lot. The best way I can describe it, it’s a lot of line work symmetry, just to show how we flourish, just like a flower. If you look at it, it’s very symmetrical. And it’s always in that process, finding connections of my own lineage of females, in our families through my ancestors. I feel like we do come from very strong mujeres, strong chingonas. My mom’s very tejana, so that’s a very common word that they use down there. I feel like there’s this connection with how Latina women are viewed in this very central way, oftentimes. But we’re more than just that, right? There’s a lot of history of why we’re so beautiful.

^{Artwork by Teresa Magaña, courtesy of the artist.}

Where are you from?

I grew up between Pilsen and Little Village, Tejana as well, my mom’s Texan. So I did grow up there, too. I’m definitely a Chicago ’90s kid, and that was the best time and formative time of my life; being on the train, going downtown, feeling like you are invincible. I still live in Pilsen, the East Side, as some people would say. But I claim both the West and East Side of Pilsen. The passion that we have, myself and my partner, as far as our arts, our creative endeavors, and just sharing our platform and opportunities that we’ve created over the years. That’s really what keeps us in Pilsen. It feels like the need and the want is there from our artists and our community, so we want to do that and share that with others.

Pilsen is one of these places where you feel that you could just be your authentic self. When others find us, they are very drawn to the culture, the community. And it’s changing and evolving all the time in different ways, but mostly with, I think, a core of good spirit in the sense of keeping the vibrancy alive here.

What is Pilsen Arts & Community House?

Pilsen Arts & Community House is an evolvement from Pilsen Outpost Gallery, which many people knew us by for a number of years. It started out with three of us just really wanting to create a space to exhibit our work and sell our own artwork. It’s not that easy in the art world in Chicago, so we created that for ourselves. And organically and naturally, our artist community that we worked with –or knew, friends and family became part of what we called the Pilsen Outpost Family, which has now evolved to the PACH Family, Pilsen Arts & Community House. We continue to do exhibitions as a formal gallery, we offer classes and workshops, anybody that wants to do … anything that’s culturally engaging and arts engaging, we will host it here in this space. I tell people all the time, this space is not ours; it is yours, it is the community’s. What do you want to see come out of this space? And we have an open-door policy; you come in with a great idea, we’ll help you make it happen.

^{As well as offering classes and workshops to the community, Pilsen Arts & Community House is still a functional gallery featuring rotating exhibitions. Ari Mejia/Vocalo Radio}

The majority of our artists are Chicago-based: Pilsen, Little Village, Back of the Yards, Brighton Park, surrounding neighborhoods, but we work with everybody. We’ve been lucky to make a network and relationship with artists in Mexico, like Querétaro, Oaxaca, Mexico City. So that grows through the network of just artists speaking to each other. If somebody is ever visiting Chicago, they’ll DM us and say, “Hey, I’m gonna be there, what can we do?” And we definitely do our best to host and try to offer opportunities to visiting artists from Mexico.

Most recently, the one thing I’m very humbled and proud of, is that all the work that, not only myself, but with other artists’ community, is being recognized now and acknowledged and aware. People in their existing communities putting in the work are now being allowed to be the true voice of who they represent and what they represent. With the city changing and politics and mayor and policies and things like that, and arts and culture being at one of those core elements of how it contributes to the city, being asked and tapped on the shoulder to be like, “Hey, Teresa, what do you think about this?” Or, “What do you want to see come out from not just your neighborhood, but in Chicago?” It’s very humbling to feel like, “Oh, you’re asking me? Cool.”

What has kept you in Chicago?

Chicago is one of those places that, it will continue to pull you back, even if you try to leave. I’ve lived all over Chicagoland area, North Side, West Side, west suburbs, the constant activity that our communities create is what keeps me here in Chicago.

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