Yreina D. Cervantez

Place: Garden City

Born: 1952

Biography:

Yreina Cervantez is an American artist and Chicana activist who is known for her multimedia painting, murals, and printmaking. She was born in Garden City, Kansas in 1952 and raised in Mount Palomar, California. Cervantez's mother was creative and served as an artistic inspiration to her daughter. Cervantez's childhood was spent in culturally segregated, rural areas and exposure to the conservative attitude of these neighborhoods inspired Cervantez to later join the Chicana/o movement. She became politicized during her Junior year of high school upon her transferring to Westminster high school in Orange County, California. She and many other Chicano & Chicana students created United Mexican American Students (UMAS), the first in her school. Cervantez then received a BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz and in 1989 graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with an MFA. She is a founding member of the Los Angeles art collective Self Help Graphics. Cervantez's art incorporates many political messages and topics. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Mexican Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum, and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.