{"id":386948,"date":"2026-07-05T13:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T13:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/386948\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T13:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T13:40:08","slug":"a-creepy-easter-bunny-a-missing-head-and-an-exploration-of-memory-in-this-solo-art-exhibition-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/386948\/","title":{"rendered":"A creepy Easter bunny, a missing head, and an exploration of memory in this solo art exhibition \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

The memory is fuzzy for Luis Alonso Sanchez<\/a>, which could be said is part of the point. His mother reminded him of the time he was around 4 years old and was taking one of those quintessential childhood springtime photos with the Easter bunny. Then, the bunny took off his head and there was a man inside the body. Sanchez was horrified.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very, very scared in the picture. \u2026 I remember I was crying a lot and I felt horrible. It was a very creepy costume, something that was intended to be beautiful or happy or joyful,\u201d he says. \u201cI think that was my first interaction of being able to realize that there was a human under this huge, creepy bunny. My mother told me recently about that anecdote, and then I began to remember, and then I had the picture. So, my mom has it very vividly in her mind, and she told me about how I reacted when the bunny took off his head. It was funny, but it was creepy for me, and I was horrified.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although he typically thinks and investigates different materials when creating, his current solo exhibition at Bread & Salt, called \u201cSweet Dreams,\u201d<\/a> revolves around memory and the idea of \u201cbeasts and monsters that have this art history, specifically painting history, and the anthropomorphic aspect of the animalization of humans and the humanization of animals,\u201d he says. Working in painting, sculpture, and installation, the 23 or so pieces in the show include an immersive installation and a video installation, and will be on display through the end of August. People will see the sculptures, paintings, drawings and pixelated artwork, and an installation in various media intended to start a conversation about the geopolitical context that surrounds us at the border.<\/p>\n

Sanchez is co-director of Sala de Espera<\/a> gallery in Tijuana, and chief curator of Encarte Galeria in Mexico City. His work has been exhibited in San Diego, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and the Netherlands, and he was an artist-in-residence at Bread & Salt in 2024. He\u2019ll be at the Logan Heights space for a free artist talk at 7 p.m. Saturday, and took some time to talk about this exhibition and his dreams, nightmares, and memories. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity. )<\/p>\n

Q: There\u2019s an image on your Instagram account<\/a> of you in a bunny costume, holding a cross, with the head of the bunny fixed on top of the cross. Bread & Salt also mentions that this collection is centered around \u201ca recurring memory from the artist\u2019s childhood: posing for a traditional spring photograph with the Easter bunny, only to witness the figure remove its head and reveal a human beneath the bunny costume. What should have been joyful becomes a moment of rupture between illusion and exposure, an image which continues to shape S\u00e1nchez\u2019s visual language.\u201d What do you recall about the moment, and how you\u2019ve chosen to build this particular body of work around it?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0That was the first anecdote that helped me think of the show, specifically, because mostly I think of materials and I investigate around different materials. I was very young, I don\u2019t remember it that much, that\u2019s why it\u2019s like a sort of a nightmare or a dream. Sometimes memory, I think, is in that place and the show revolves around memory. It started there, and there\u2019s some different characters that appear in different paintings, and in some sculptures. In painting history, there are studies of crucifixions. Since I began the process of moving to Mexico City last year, coming and going from Tijuana to Mexico City, going to churches has always been a very important part of Mexico\u2019s culture. It\u2019s the mix of Mexican heritage and the Spaniard colonization, so that\u2019s when that started. I was born Catholic, but I\u2019m not Catholic anymore, so that has been there. And, the studies of crucifixions started when I moved to Mexico City, so that\u2019s why there\u2019s a bunny and crucifixions, and these archetypes and beasts become these offerings. These are chimerical offerings, in a way. It\u2019s not a show that is talking about religion, it\u2019s not a show that is talking about Catholicism, it\u2019s a show that is talking about something that has been in my specific history that I wanted this show to be very personal in some way. Religion is around everyone, and not specifically Christianity or Catholicism, so it\u2019s an element that\u2019s in the show and that is very heavy. Then, that relates to the characters in the show that are bunnies, sometimes old cartoons like Felix the Cat, or Lola Bunny, and different representations of this beast, or anthropomorphic representations. They are represented in pop culture, mainly, because of the weight of the images that can almost be religious. It doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re in L.A. or New York or Mexico City or Madrid, you see these visual elements repeat, so those are some of the ideas that go into what the bunny turned into. It started with the bunny, and then it became the anthropomorphic representation of peace and desire and joy. Then, then it turned into a mix of doing crucifixion studies, and political and religious context, and what\u2019s going on in the show is a mix of that.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0You were a 2024 Bread & Salt IMPACT artist-in-residence. Can you talk about what you did during this residency and whether that work has had any influence on what we see in \u201cSweet Dreams\u201d?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0That has a lot to do with the show. We have one of the sculptures that I produced back in 2024 in the show, that it\u2019s another study of what I was thinking back then. It was a Greek study of this very famous painting made by Edvard Munch, the Norwegian artist, that is famously known as \u201cThe Scream.\u201d Back then, I did this sort of a reference of the study with the movie \u201cScream,\u201d so it\u2019s directly connected. One of the directors of the \u201cScream\u201d movies, of course, saw this painting by Edvard Munk. Some of the quotes about why that painting exists say that Edvard Munk was a very paranoid artist. He was depressed and paranoid, and he was in a beautiful sunset in Norway, near the ocean, and he said that he was deeply horrified by the immense silence of nature. So, in a beautiful sunset, there was this thing in his mind that could not let him be OK. I think that is deeply connected to the idea of \u201cSweet Dreams\u201d because \u201cSweet Dreams\u201d is very related to nightmares. It\u2019s like the approach, or the way you handle very tough situations. Like, when something in life is against you, how do you handle it? How does that get into your mind and your dreams? That can be very connected to geopolitical context, political situations, and whatever anybody feels in this current moment in life that is haunting them. That could be personal, political, financial, whatever it is. That\u2019s why the show is called \u201cSweet Dreams\u201d because it revolves around a very intense moment in life, but at the same time, how do we handle it? If you\u2019re going through a personal struggle, but at the end you try to be more positive and powerful. That\u2019s the reason why the show is called \u201cSweet Dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0What did you come to learn about this tension between dreams and nightmares?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0What I intend to do in the paintings, or the show in general, is there are some elements to the show that are stronger, that are very visible. I put a chain link fence around the show. When you ask about the tension between dreams and nightmares, my mind takes me to this aspect of the show that I don\u2019t talk a lot about in my work \u2014 that is the border. The idea of division that I\u2019ve been constantly, not avoiding, but I think that everything I do seems to be from TJ and it is related, even if it isn\u2019t talked about. The thing in the middle, where the dreams and the nightmares are, is this invisible line sometimes. What I\u2019ve learned is to go through it, be patient, and analyze what is going on in between the dreams and the nightmares. To grab strength from it, and work in another way to beat the nightmare. That\u2019s what I\u2019m trying to do right now, specifically, and that\u2019s what I\u2019ve learned about living between dreams and nightmares.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0You collaborated with curator Jairo Antonio Hoyos; can you talk a bit about your process for conceptualizing \u201cSweet Dreams\u201d? What kinds of conversations were the two of you having? Were there works you were reading, places you were visiting, that helped inform this show?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0Jairo has been working with me for the last year and a half on two different shows, so we are talking constantly. I always talk to him about the idea, conceptually, that the border doesn\u2019t start in Tijuana. Our project, Sala de Espera, it\u2019s a project that\u2019s installed in the border, but we don\u2019t do border shows, so that was one of the main ideas, conceptually. Where the fence ends is not where the idea of the division starts, so that was one of the ideas that we were talking about all the time. In more of a pop culture reference, we were talking about the movie \u201cA Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master,\u201d the fourth Freddy Krueger movie. And, we were listening to \u201cCrawling\u201d by Linkin Park, so we were into \u201990s and 2000s rock music, talking about the show, and a lot of different references around horror movies and that specific kind of music. And, the visual elements were Felix the Cat, or Bugs Bunny or Lola Bunny, and we were revisiting certain lectures mainly around 2000s pop culture.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0This collection is also described as \u201cexploring the tension between dreams and nightmares\u201d and that \u201cRooted in the psychological and emotional conditions of inherited border histories, S\u00e1nchez\u2019s practice approaches the border not as a fixed line, but as an atmosphere shaped by memory, desire, restriction, and imagination.\u201d Can you talk about where you grew up and what this idea of an inherited border history has looked like, and what it has meant, for you?<\/p>\n

A: I don\u2019t exactly remember the first time that I acknowledged the border, but it\u2019s something that has always been there, of course. Through time, it has been getting more intense. I remember it wasn\u2019t that intense at the beginning, or at least the visuality of the border. I\u2019m sure that there has always been a lot of problems around that division, but growing up, I was born going to San Ysidro all my life. My mother is a Tijuana native, and I always had the privilege of being able to cross the border with a passport, being born in Tijuana. Later on, when you get older, you begin to see all of the social and political problems around it. I think that since I moved to Mexico City, you begin to see your hometown in a different way. You realize a lot of different stuff around culture, around what it is to be from Tijuana, what it is to be from San Diego, San Ysidro. You understand way better some things that are going on, and you feel way more proud about some stuff, and some stuff seems more stupid. One of the stupid things that I saw that was very impressive was the visuality of the walking entrance to Mexico. It\u2019s brutal \u2014 the lighting, you have these huge fences all around. It looks like hell, to be honest. It has the big name that says \u201cMEXICO\u201d and it sounds like you\u2019re going to prison or somewhere because you have the sound of the revolving door. It\u2019s very, very, very dramatic. The first time I came back after being in Mexico City for almost a year, I went to that to that gate and I was like, \u201cWow, this is so crazy. How didn\u2019t I realize this?\u201d That\u2019s why the chain link is in the show. It\u2019s not to talk about the division, it\u2019s about this physical element that is around. When people learn I\u2019m from Tijuana, all they think about is the fence. It\u2019s not all that we are, but it is something that\u2019s in their minds. We have the chain link in different scenarios, dividing territories in general; it\u2019s not only about borders. The show is not about giving the importance to the chain link, it\u2019s about having it there, and paintings are hanging on the chain link. So, I don\u2019t think it looks as strong as intended, and that\u2019s why it\u2019s there. You have to go into an enclosed area in some moment in the show, and you have to sit there and watch a video. You go in there, you feel enclosed, but at the same time, I think that the chain link has the importance that the context gives it, and the person seeing it puts there. That\u2019s why the chain link is there; it\u2019s not that I want to talk about the border, that\u2019s inevitable. It\u2019s there, it\u2019s part of my life, and it\u2019s part of who I am, but it\u2019s not what defines me or what defines the people that live in the border city. So, that\u2019s why it\u2019s there.<\/p>\n

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