JAVIER SUÁREZ | THE BRANDING DESIGNER. Illustrator Javier Suárez goes beyond Frida Kahlo for Latinx representation.
WITH A FOCUS on diversity and representation, Javier Suárez, 32, is a branding designer, strategist and co-owner of a cannabis company.
He currently lives in the west side of Chicago. His parents are from Mexico and he describes himself as Latino or Hispanic. Suárez studied illustration at Columbia College Chicago, and now primarily works as a graphic designer.
His pop-culture-inspired art carries a visual language that combines Saturday morning cartoons with a super-flat aesthetic.
“It’s not necessarily meant to bring other people joy. If they do find joy in it, that’s great. I do it more for me and partly for that representation and diversity, especially in the people that I think for me, is important.” When asked about his work, Suárez states, “I just want people to see some version of themselves in my art. I think for me, that would be a success.”
What do you think of the term Latinx to identify people of Latin American or Spanish background?
I have a very silly outlook, not that it’s silly necessarily, but my outlook is going to be silly. I just don’t enter the debate, Latinx, because all words are made up and there’s nothing wrong with making up another word that we identify as. Personally, I identify as Latino. I have no issues. Should people be allowed to use Latinx or Latine? Absolutely, I don’t understand why not. To me, this is just really silly. People need to draw more and get a hobby. We shouldn’t have that conversation.
For me, Latinx is just another step and a bunch of people trying to figure out their place in the world, and Latinx is the next step in being inclusive to people coming from places that aren’t very inclusive, whether it be from the U.S. or Latin America. Unless you’re a part of that traditional social binary that we’ve adhered to for how many years, I can relate a lot to feeling othered in a place that really makes you feel that way, but I feel like Latinx is a way of people claiming their space in this world. For me, I want to encourage that. We’re imperfect people and there’s never going to be one word that sums up all of our parts accurately. Doesn’t matter how hard we try.
How is your identity as a Latino influencing your art and your passion for it?
Everything that I do, even larger than design or illustration, has the purpose to some extent of being used as a means of building generational wealth for myself and for the people around me. For example, I run a branding studio. It’s usually just me but for every project, I try to reach out to a younger career artist, designer, or copywriter, and I try to bring them in and to get that experience and opportunity, as well as pay for work that might interest them. You know, for going into the future.
Art isn’t for me, an end goal. I don’t want to be up in a museum somewhere. I think for me, artists are more of a means of getting something that creates sustainability for a profession that Latinos, especially older generation Latinos, don’t really see as something sustainable, financially speaking.
What’s it like being a Latino artist in Chicago and has it shaped you much as an individual?
Yes and no. I think Chicago is wonderful in the sense that it does have a lot of communities. It’s obviously a bigger city. I feel like a lot of those communities can be very alienating. It comes both ways, right? It’s nice to be in a place surrounded by a lot of peers who may or may not have come from similar places. You know, first-generation Latinos, whether it be Mexico, Guatemala, whatever. I just feel like it can go negatively in the other way.
What I’ve seen happen, I’ve lived in Pilsen for a long time, I don’t anymore, and I just started seeing a lot of the same influences come up. It creates this homogenous art style where everyone’s doing Frida Kahlo, and they love it. Which to me, don’t get me wrong. It’s a part of my Mexican identity, but for me personally, I grew up with Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, so a lot of those visual cues are considered ‘very Mexican’ to me.
I find it a little strange that we hyperfocus on things like Frida Kahlo or all the bright colors, which is fine. It starts to feel like insecurity, trying to prove that you’re Mexican enough or Latino. Just draw what you enjoy drawing or draw the things that you want to do. I always tell people that my art is Mexican art because I’m Mexican therefore anything I create is Mexican art. I don’t have to draw a cactus in my composition for me to be ‘look, it’s Mexican art because there’s a cactus.’ No, it came from me and my hands and mind. That’s all the justification I need for it to be considered Latino or Mexican art. I just wish people were self-aware. You can do anything you like, you don’t have to do what everyone else is doing around you.
“My art came from me and my hands and mind. That’s all the justification I need for it to be considered Latino or Mexican art.”
When it comes to your artwork, what do you aim to show with that art if you have any meanings underneath all that?
So, I’m primarily a graphic designer now. I went to Columbia College for illustration. I still do illustrate quite a bit for mostly commercial clients. My designs are a little different from my illustrations, I really like to focus on diversity. So, I get commissioned to do a lot of people or crowds of people. I guess that’s kind of what I’m known for aesthetically. Within those crowds of people, I try to have as much representation as possible.
That’s important to me because growing up in the art academia, whether it be high school or college, I feel like I didn’t really see myself in a lot of the artwork that I was being taught. There’s always the Frida Kahlo section and a little bit of the Diego Rivera, but honestly, I didn’t really relate to a lot of that. I guess I wanted to create that type of work that I wish I would have seen when I was a kid and also see myself in a way. I’m hoping to do that for you know, other people or even the younger people who may be inspired to pursue illustration or art in general.
What do you feel is missing from the art world and do you feel like your art provides for that?
A lot of things are missing. I mean, this is a much larger conversation, much more. More art programs, more youth-orientated art programs. I used to run an arts and performance space in Pilsen and our focus for the two years it was open was multigenerational art shows. I think there’s a disconnect between different generations of artists, especially in places like Pilsen, Little Village.
There are a lot of artists there and I feel like there are these older master printmakers, and then there are the people like my age who are in their 30s who grew up in the 90s that have a shared catalog of visual inspirations and pop culture, and then there’s the younger crowd.
We all have our art shows, cliques, and communities, but there’s not a lot of overlap between the older crowds, the generations before them, and the generations before them.
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