About The Artwork
The work draws heavily on Gloria Anzaldúa’s theory of Nepantla—a space of in-betweenness and shifting identity—and explores the artist’s experience of cultural hybridity as a queer, Mexican-American man. The figure of the coyote operates on multiple levels: as an animal of myth, a symbol of cunning and survival, and as a reference to the human "coyote" who smuggled migrants across the border. Rather than villainize, Avena reclaims the figure as a symbol of adaptive transformation, agency, and ancestral memory.
Blending Chicano mythos, Catholic iconography, and borderland poetics, the painting becomes a meditation on voice, value, and visibility—especially for those living at the intersections of race, sexuality, and nationality. It invites viewers into the emotional terrain of the "new mestizaje," where identity is not fixed, but constantly negotiated across language, land, and legacy.
