b chehayeb

mexican dinner hero, 2024

A painting that references b chehayeb’s love of her mother’s caldo—a Mexican chicken broth-based soup served with lime—as well as her struggles to follow the recipe and make a good dish. mexican dinner hero (2024) offers warm, spicy reds and oranges at the edges of the composition populated by a caldo pot, green lime wedges, and a pink energetically brushed funnel of energy leading up to a yellow star. chehayeb suggests this shape “symbolizes ‘working to the top’ in some way, working to excel and working to be great! great at being a girl or mexican or american or anything…a strange and personal accomplishment culturally, domestically, familially” This balancing act between self-motivation and societal / familial pressures rendered as a spatial abstraction align with chehayeb’s interest in hole-punched blue-lined notebook paper—an expression of academic excellence (chehayeb loved to learn and to be in school) as well as a blank page (canvas) that symbolizes the artistic blossoming of an aspiring poet (painter).

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