‘I’ve never walked into a museum and seen myself on the walls’
Paintings
Studio Lenca paintings tell an autobiographical story which navigates
borders and identities destroyed, redrawn and erased through colonisation
and war. The portraits depict the artist and his community proudly wearing
hats and vibrant colours in noble defiance of the ‘western’ discourse around
migration.
These colourful paintings depict male Salvadoran figures adorned with costume and ornaments that playfully explore masculinity, the colonial past of Studio Lenca’s home country and the current violent discourse of Salvadoreñxs. The markings of MS-13 and 18th street are absent, instead whimsical marks and bold colours portray a softer more vulnerable experience.
‘My mother is a cleaner. When we moved to the US from El Salvador it was one of the only jobs she didn't need papers for. When I was younger I was so embarrassed to tell people that she cleaned houses. But as an adult I see that it's the noblest thing a mother could do for her children. This series is a reflection on the labour that she's endured and the deterioration of her body because of it. This "mantel" isn't painted it's scrubbed with cleaning chemicals. As an artist I reflect on my relationship to her and to labour. Because of her I am an artist.’
."Esta fregado" 2021
Kitchen "mantel" scrubbed with cleaning chemicals
176x140cm
Border Vessel
I created the Border Vessel project in 2023. The work takes the form of a disposable water bottle made from the bed of the Rio Grande River and Jade sourced from El Salvador.
The plastic gallon water bottle is an object that is used during the border crossings to sustain life, I also see the ‘vessel’ as a symbol of the body that resists the current unfair and inhumane US immigration system. The production of the work occurred across the geo-political and social borders that my community have overcome by entering the US illegally by land. The idea for this project came to me in a dream and it wouldn’t leave me until I made it.
It was important to me that the production of these works engaged and collaborated with people and community in these contested spaces. I wanted to include the Latinx voices that lived here. I worked with a Mexican-American collective of ceramic artists to source and process the material from the river bed to make the clay, we then hand built the forms and fired them.
When sourcing the clay from the river it felt that we had a direct material connection to the people that had passed through this place, as well as the estimated 30 people a month that lose their lives due to drowning in the river. The place and the clay felt integrated and charged with these lives.
After hand-building the vessels and firing, the clay became unstable and took on it’s own agency. Cracks and ruptures started to appear. It felt like the material had a memory of this fractured place, the cracks resembled maps, fault lines, the flow of the river or the routes taken by migrants.
As we made, we talked about our experiences and the legacy the border had on our lives.
Once the forms were completed I took the works to El Salvador. This was important to me as it was a reverse journey where I had the chance to return these objects, bodies and earth back home.
In El Salvador I sourced natural jade and collaborated with a jade carver to make replica plastic lids. I felt the jade was important for this project as it was seen as more precious than gold to pre-columbian communities in the region. Often a ruler would be buried with a piece of jade in their mouth, to ensure survival in the afterlife. I then worked with my community to facilitate an ancestral ceremony led by a Mayan priest. This stage of the project allowed the objects to absorb an embodied and intergenerational knowledge.
Jose Campos
B.1986 La Paz ,El Salvador
Lives and works in the UK
Collections:
Parrish Art Museum
CPPC, Patricia Phelps de Cisneros
Elie Khouri Art Foundation
The MER Foundation
The Poma Collection
Mario Cader-Frech Collection
Education:
MA Arts & Learning 2019 Goldsmiths University of London
Art & Design PGCE 2015 Goldsmiths University of London
MA Contemporary Dance 2013 London Contemporary Dance School
2023
Solo Exhibitions:
Chisme, Parrish Art Museum, New York
Alquimia, Fina Cortesin, Malaga
El Jardin, Tang Contemporary, Bangkok
Cutting Through, Edji, Brussels
Listo, Halsey Mckay, New York
Flock, Ilwoo Foundation, Seoul
Joyeria, COAM, Madrid
2022
Solo Exhibitions:
Ni de aquí, ni de allá, Untitled Art Fair, Miami
A Losing Game, Soho Revue, London
The Journey Becomes You, Artual Gallery, Beirut
I’m working on leaving, Tang Contemporary, Seoul
The Dreamers, Foundry, Dubai
The Invisibles , Sierra Metro , Edinburgh Art Festival, Edinburgh
Studio Jadaf, Dubai
Group Exhibitions:
Like there is hope and I can dream of another world, Hospital Rooms X Hauser & Wirth, Hauser & Wirth, London
Hometown Sessions 1, Edji Gallery, Paris
FreshPaint London, Noho Showroom, London
Orsini Palace, Studio 11, Rome
Adult by Nature, Quench Gallery, Margate
A Shadow Across A Line, Hatch Art Project, Singapore
Como la flor , Y.E.S Contemporary, Museum of Art, El Salvador
Polychromy, Artual Gallery, Beirut
Summer exhibition, Gallery Red, Palma
Pavilions , M.A.H Gallery, London
POW festival , Turner Contemporary, Margate
URVANITY, Arniches Gallery, Prize Winner (Fundacion MER), Madrid
Identity , Artistellar, London
2021
Arniches 26 Gallery , Madrid
Turner Open , Turner Contemporary, Margate
MAH , London Design Festival , London
Convergent acts , Bubble and Squeak, Brussels
Ni de aqui ni de alla Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles
The Pattern of patience at Marc Straus Gallery, New York
Los Historiantes, Nominated for Prix Pictet
2020
SWAB BARCELONA , Solo Exhibition , La Unica Galeria, El Salvador
Los Historiantes , Winner of the Open Solo exhibition Photofringe, Brighton
Unknown Learning , Northdown Studios, Margate
Peckham Pride Mural Culture Seeds, London
Queer’ing the art curriculum lecture University of Arts London
2019
Mile of String , Horniman Museum, London
Los Historiantes , ‘La Horchata’ Publication, Washington DC
Los Historiantes , VIA Arts Prize Embassy of El Salvador, London
Peoples Voices for Tony Cokes Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, London
Los Historiantes, Margate NOW Festival, Margate
Doing and Undoing St James Gallery, Goldsmiths University, London
2018
Critical Pedagogy in Contested Spaces, Tate Modern, London
The Artist Teacher, 288 New Cross Rd, London
2017
Rural Painting School, La Paz, El Salvador
2016
Artist in Residence Under the Same Sun, South London Gallery, London
2015
Kill Kill Kill Parasol Unit Gallery, London
2014
Navigating dance with my fat body, 288 New Cross, London
Passport Please, 310 Gallery, London
2013
The Wave, Trinity Laban, London
The Wave, National Portrait Gallery, London
2012
Local Group Resolutions !, The Place, London
2011
Choreographic Scores at Trisha Brown Barbican Art Gallery, London
Visiting Lecturer
New York University “The Latinx Project”
Goldsmiths CCA Assistant curator
Freelands Foundation
Unknown Learning Northdown studios
University of the Arts London
Embassy of El Salvador
VIA Arts Prize
University College London
University of Leeds
Trinity Laban
Installation View: Chisme (2023) Parrish Art Museum, New York (Photo: Kerry Sharkey-Miller)
Community Engagement Project during Chisme (2023) Parrish Art Museum, New York (Photo: Kerry Sharkey-Miller)
Installation View: I’m Working on Leaving (2022) Tang Contemporary, Seoul
‘When people ask me where I’m from, I never know how to answer. Born in El Salvador, growing up illegally in California then spending my adult life in the UK. What does that question mean and why do people ask it?’
Studio Lenca photographed by Marc Hibbert (c) 2022
Studio Lenca is the working name of artist Jose Campos – ‘Studio’ referring to
a space for experimentation and constantly shifting place; ‘Lenca’ referring
to the name of the artists ancestors from El Salvador.
Jose Campos was born in La Paz, El Salvador and like many had to flee the
country during its violent civil war during the late 1980s. He travelled to the US
by land, illegally with his mother and grew up in the gaze of a strictly
conservative administration - an ‘illegal alien’. Studio Lenca is focused on ideas surrounding difference, knowledge and
visibility. He works with performance, video, painting and sculpture.
Studio Lenca photographed by Sarah Bates (c) 2022Studio Lenca’s process starts with personal memories and is underpinned by
social activism and different forms of praxis.
Studio Lenca paintings tell an autobiographical story which navigates
borders and identities destroyed, redrawn and erased through colonisation
and war. The portraits depict the artist and his community proudly wearing
hats and vibrant colours in noble defiance of the ‘western’ discourse around
migration.
"Esta fregado 2" 2022Kitchen "mantel" scrubbed with cleaning chemicals
176x140cm
Los Historiantes
Studio Lenca’s photographic series ‘Los Historiantes’ looks at the folkloric dancers of El Salvador. This
is an ongoing project in which he creates portraits of himself and others dressed as a Historiante. Los Historiantes are a result of
traditions brought over by the Iberian conquistadors during the colonisation of the Americas mixed with pre-
Columbian beliefs. The Historiantes offer an embodied archive of trauma that is still relevant today. When
building these costumes, the collection of materials becomes difficult and Studio Lenca often needs to borrow from different
cultures with similar histories, this process becomes the performance. The inability to access authentic materials for
the costumes highlights my distance from the place Studio Lenca was as well as a disconnect with Salvadoran
culture due to being uprooted by war. The trajectories Salvadoran people and many Central American
nations have taken stems back to violent histories, specifically the colonisation of the Americas by European
colonisers. This postcolonial intergenerational trauma is present to this day and can be seen in public discourse of
Latinx communities, especially in the U.S.
