.png)
_edited.jpg)
My work begins with my body—physically, spiritually, and historically. It’s the first archive I turn to when navigating my identity as an Afro-Filipina. Living in a transcultural body, I often experience a dissonance between inherited narratives and the spaces I move through. My practice explores this disconnect and the quiet urgency to piece together what was lost, misplaced, or misinterpreted.
I work primarily in ceramics and performance, both guided by a background in dance. Movement becomes a language I return to; tactile, instinctual, and grounded in the concept of remembrance. It allows me to embody narrative in ways that words often mislabel. Through raw texture and imperfection I reclaim my presence. My work lives in this tension between these intersecting identities, mimicking tradition while mocking the systems that defined it. My work negotiates what it means to carry legacy: to both uphold tradition and give myself permission to recontextualize it.
CERAMICS
Tangled Roots | Weeping Willow,
2023 Ceramic, 18”12”24”
The ceramic self-portrait Weeping Willow | Tangled Roots is a deeply personal and evocative exploration of my identity, heritage, and the complexities of growing up multiracial. I deliberately choose to use rough textures on the surface to convey the ambiguity and fluidity of my self perception, prioritizing the essence of movement and its ability to persuade the mood. Through the use of motion, I highlights the complexities and nuances of identity, illustrating the impact of experience in shaping who we become. The tension between internal identity and societal perception is expressed through the rawness of the form. Hair is used as a recurring theme in the artist’s work, symbolizing the struggles she faced as a child learning to care for it on her own. This motif deepens the connection to nature, with hair representing both heritage and confidence. The artist’s affinity for natural materials imbues her work with greater significance, drawing connections between the forward growth of identity and the retrospective complexities of cultural identity. Tangled Roots dissects the challenges the artist faced in uncovering her heritage, navigating a world that feels disconnected from the environment and traditions of her predecessors. Through this exploration, the artist portrays the difficulties of reconciling her modern-day experiences with the inherited knowledge of those who came before her.
Sketch 1, 2023
Ceramic, 6” x 4” x 12”
Natural Hair, 2023 Ceramic, 60in x 17in x 24in
Liminal Ego, 2024 Ceramic, 12” x 8” x 9”
SCULPTURE
Untitled , 2025 Rice & Paper clay, 36in x 36in x 30in
 |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|
 |  |
This piece is a continuance of an older piece that played on this idea of abstracting my identity. For this concept, I created my own medium, by taking rice and painting it black in batches, to cover a figure. This became an ironic portrayal of my identity as a blasian. I wanted to display how the American dream was sold to my ancestors, who had both immigrated here from independent parts of the world. This was the world they were sold in which I have inherited- what they thought they would get through relocation. Rice is a significant historical component in both my lineages and felt a commonality I could return to when uncovering representation to where these two cultures can be related.
PERFORMANCE
"One Night Stand" 2021
"Monument to Anger" 2024
Smaller Projects 2025
Leave it Under the Table
ANger Under the table
From 2020 my work took a change, as I digested the climate around me. From media captured during peaceful protest turned awry, to intimate relationships uncovered with hidden intention. It became hard for me to ignore the many facets race plays a role in my mundane life. Whether recognized or not, race became the cellular function of our greater organism in this society. Under the Table is a combination of several pieces of work I had made over the years as I explored a world outside of my home and my own place in it. Footage from a few protests I had attended in 2020 but never showcased, after the murder of George Floyd, opened my eyes to the way media can control narrative and our responsibility to approach it with consciousness for its ability to persuade a tone. I layered it with two different dance improvisations I had developed around a prop I had created—one being the assumption of Black bodies as commodities even long after the abolition of slavery. This piece expresses my destabilizing for the lived experience of racism embedded in portrayal and stereotypes infecting this country, as a Black woman in white spaces. The first one developed from a blanket and underwear, taking a feminist approach to sexuality. The other being about where we place anger.
A woman Who still plays in the mud
We look at flowers as symbols of love, but really, they say more about how we view beauty; and through it, how we treat women. The idea of the ideal woman, the "trophy wife", becomes something detached from reality, from humanity. A flower picked and placed in a vase might seem beautiful, but it’s also removed from where it came from.
In this project, I explore where beauty really stems from, not from perfection or presentation, but from the raw, messy, living earth. A flower can still grow in the mud and it is just as beautiful.
Three hour live sculpture performance piece at the Here/Now show featured at the Santa Monica College Barrett Gallery.
 |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
Shows
© 2025 Willow Vergara. All rights reserved.