This piece explores the artist’s mixed emotions about her mother’s work ethic as a warehouse worker for the last 20 years. Like many immigrants in the Inland Empire, her mother has found a job in a mega warehouse, where she builds boxes. Her mother claims that having a job which provides for her family brings her joy and fulfillment, and she instills the same strong work ethic in her children. Yet, it is painfully obvious that she is dispensable to such a corporation, which not only exploits workers with low pay and boxed-in working conditions but also degrades the local environment.
Work Ethic
Oil on wood
Rosy Cortez
Rosy Cortez is an oil painter, photographer and muralist based out of Riverside, California. She draws most of her inspiration from cultural and feminine identities. Her work explores emotional and visual dualities, and she sees painting as an act of elevating the subject. By painting latino working class figures in a classical style, she confers the respect we hold for that style to the subjects themselves. Rosy studied Fine Art and Photography at Riverside Community College and received a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Figurative Painting from California State University of Long Beach. She has served as emerging artist for Riverside Art Museum on the Park Avenue Storefront Revitalization Project. She is a featured and teaching artist at The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture. She is currently serving as an Artist-in-Residence for UCR’s Latino and Latin American Research Studies Center.
