UWM Student Tells Stories of Mesoamerica in Gallery Show

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“There is a lot that is being hidden from us. A lot of our history is buried, and I am very proud of the fact that I am getting in, really digging, in order to bring it to light once again,” Celeste Contreras Skierski tells me.

She is speaking on the subject matter of her first gallery show on her own, titled “Tlacuilo Amoxcalli” at Peck School of the Arts (2155 N. Prospect Ave.). In Nahuatl, an ancient language of the indigenous people of Mesoamerica, “Tlacuilo Amoxcalli” means “The bookkeeper’s library.” “Emergent energy says we are risking every day when we survive—we cannot understand what time truly is. All of these stories have been told before, and it is my turn to do so,” Contreras Skierski explains.

The concept of the show is that you are entering an ancient library, created using the long-forgotten methods that were thought to have disappeared, but are studied at length by the students that seek them. One of them is Contreras Skierski, an MFA candidate at UWM. The gallery itself is shared by three other artists who are also studying for their MFA.

Weave an Intricate Tale

“We are all Tlacuilos, because we all have stories to tell,” Contreras Skierski explains. The art that spans across the walls at her show weave an intricate tale, one that employs the use of recall, something Contreras Skierski’s ancestors believed in, coupled with her own experiences as a child. There is what appears to be an altar, with a circle of strategically placed corn husks and drawings, with a table that is low to the ground, a pillow at its foot. It looks like something someone might have prayed at, or made offerings to, but the explanation is a lot more personal.

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“This is the way I used to draw as a child. My mother gave me coloring books and I would position myself on my knees and lean forward, creating a focus on what I was doing”, Contreras Skierski says. Also in the exhibit is a scroll that is unfurled some 20 feet long, a self-portrait of the artist holding strands of her hair at the side of her head. It tells a story through deep India ink, illustrating the plight of undocumented families crossing borders, indigenous queens, and symbolic staircases morphing out of a mesoamerican profile.

“The first step toward drawing anything is research. Every artist knows this and that is what makes something truly special”, says Contreras Skierski. She has always loved formal education, because it presents an opportunity for her. “Formal education gives me the chance to ask ‘Why?’ Why is it the way you say it is? In schools, what is presented is always the end-all be-all explanation to everything and it makes me so happy to be able to think and use my brain in a very creative way,”, she says.

Contreras Skierski does her homework, and her show is proof of this. The ink used in part of the almanac she created is made from corn, the way the cultures before her created it. “During their pandemics, they would run out of ink and paper and you can see how their art and documenting starts to fade in color. I started leaning toward the history keeper concept during COVID. It just made sense,” she says. Contreras Skierski is a channel for the spirits that came before her, holding books over her head, engulfed in the smoke of palo santo, upholding the duties of Tlacuilos, the mapmakers who came before her.

“Tlacuilo Amoxcalli” runs until May 21.