Local artists Lokey Calderon and Sarah Ayala pitched in for the 'Drifting on a Memory' project.
"Guadalupe Rosales: Drifting on a Memory" is on view in a 153-foot-long walkway at the Dallas Museum of Art through July 10 as part of the museum's Concourse Mural series.Since 2015, the Dallas Museum of Art has invited artists to create site-specific murals along the museum’s 153-foot-long walkway for its Concourse Mural series.
Green neon lights run along the bottom of the mural, echoing the dynamic glow exuded by lowrider undercarriages. Two mirrored boxes lined with neon lights are nestled into the walls, etched with custom graphics and topped by photographs from Rosales’ archive. Looking inside, the lights and images appear infinite, repeated again and again until they disappear — moments captured in time, memories framed by the glow of passing street signs.
Dating back to the mid-20th century, California’s lowrider culture is a subsect of the evolution of American car culture and the “hot rod” era. Rosales grew up in East Los Angeles, during the tumultuous years of the 1980s and ‘90s, when the city’s minority populations were rocked by the L.A. riots and the crackdown on illegal immigration. She began “cruising” as a young teenager and became a member of a “party crew,” throwing underground raves in dilapidated warehouses — a movement that heralded the growing entrepreneurial spirit of minority communities and the commercial success of West Coast street culture.