MAD Artists Studio alum and #MADCollection artist Natalia Arbelaez (@natalia_arbelaez_) describes herself as a storyteller, relating “narratives from my own Colombian family’s immigration to research of pre-Columbian South American presence, to my American, latchkey, after-school-cartoon upbringing.” Her witty figurative sculpture Mestizo Arbelaez takes its title from the Spanish term for a person of mixed ethnic ancestry. The work expresses a hybrid identity through its combination of materials: reddish terracotta, a type of clay used by Arbelaez’s Indigenous ancestors' and white-glazed majolica, a ceramic technique invented in Europe. A similar tale is told in the imagery, which suggests in remarkably compressed form the disruption, assimilation, and genocide of Indigenous people at the hands of the white colonizer. #HispanicHeritageMonth __________ #NataliaArbelaez Mestizo Arbelaez, 2020 Terracotta and majolica #HispanicHeritageMonth