BEHIND THE SCENES - Meet Celia Alvaréz Muñoz

Celia Álvarez Muñoz

Flatbed is extremely proud to have Celia Álvarez Muñoz as one of our artists. Celia describes herself as an Artivist; as an artist and an activist and her practice includes the creation of artist’s books, photography, installation, and public art. Born in El Paso, Texas, Celia’s roots are deep in her bilingual and bicultural heritage. Often she plays with text, puns, and double meanings, regularly addressing such themes as cognitive development and language acquisition. In others works, she fiercely addresses issues that are often ignored.

Her work has been nationally and internationally exhibited, including in the Whitney Museum of American Art 1991 Biennial. Her art is in numerous private and public collections. Álvarez Muñoz’s work has recently been featured in the cataloged exhibition, “Radical Women: Latin American Art 1960-1985,” which toured internationally 2015-2018. In 2020 she was honored with the Art League of Houston’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the Andrew Mellon Foundation’s Latinx Artists Fellowship.

In 1998, Álvarez Muñoz came to work with Katherine Brimberry at Flatbed on the print that is titled “Sweet Nothings.” The source for the image came from Celia’s innovative photographic images from objects which were placed on tiers of plexiglass over weathered concrete in natural sunlight creating a layered image. This was a pre-digital era and all layering was done with single exposures of black and white film. It was Celia’s wish that the print have “candy-like” color, so Flatbed collaborated with the studio of Sam Coronado and his printer Brian Johnson to screen print the image using layers of color. The finished print has over ten color screen print runs. Over the color image, Brimberry worked with Álvarez Muñoz to create a letterpress relief plate to print the text in ink so transparent that only in the right light or angle it can be legible: “Saint Anthony would help you find anything, including novios, boyfriends provided you prayed to him for nine weeks.”

This print was printed in an edition of 50 and officially rpublished in 2000. A few impressions are still available.