Miguel Angel Godoy: Flesh Tones and the Flag

Since the founding of America, from the days of slavery to Jim Crow, from Separate but Equal to the contemporary discussion about systemic racism, a whole host of unwritten rules and practices have suppressed the voices of minority communities. Some of the terms given to define that power are White Supremacy, White Privilege, and Patriarchy, all of which refers to whites' historical and contemporary advantages in access to quality education, decent jobs, livable wages, homeownership, retirement benefits, and the accumulation of generational wealth.

Structural, institutional and systemic racism broadly refer to the system of structures that that have procedures or processes that disadvantage African Americans. Systemic racism refers to the rules, practices and customs once rooted in law that carry residual effects that reverberate throughout society, but which often go unseen or unacknowledged. In American politics arguments about structural racism are often rendered as the negative image of American Exceptionalism whenever oppressed communities try to win equal rights, equality of opportunity,and safety before the law.

In other words, the history of white privilege tries to co-opt movements like Black Lives Matter with “All Lives Matter” or “Blue Lives Matter”, and other counter-slogans that render the objections to White Supremacy invisible. Godoy’s work uses the negative image of these words and juxtaposes them against political symbols and bodies in an effort to make us more aware of how dangerous this ideology is in our society by working to negate the forward movement of progressive politics.

Bio: Miguel Angel Godoy was born in the border town of Imperial Valley, California. He holds a Bachelor’s in Fine Art from Columbus State University and an MFA in Painting and Drawing at Arizona State University. As a scholar of Hip-Hop culture and a practitioner of breaking (breakdancing) and graffiti, Godoy's artwork is informed by rhythm, flow, and style. His work explores the in between spaces, also known as the “go-down” in breaking. By navigating the counterforms or negative space that exist between letterforms, Goday's work explores how the meaning and intention of words are manifested within these gaps in order to become more aware of the space between our thoughts.