Ponte Las Pilas
Homero Carrillo-Leon
Artist statement: "Ponte Las Pilas is a more personal piece as mental health can still be seen as a stigma within the Latino community. I’ve also been working in mental health since my first semester in college, first starting with children and focusing on behavioral goals, to now working with young adults and offering them resources along with a safe place to hangout or talk about anything at my job. Being of Latino background, I want to make present mental health as attractive and not something to run away from. Machismo, or a really strong sense of masculine pride, sometimes gets in the way of asking for help no matter what the circumstances are. Having seen it a lot as I grew up, I want to use this as a main focal point to show that no matter how strong someone might say they are, they are bound to break as no one can keep everything bottled up for so long. This piece will make me look deeper into my culture and the reasoning behind why mental health isn’t discussed. There’s a lot of different factors and I know I can’t cover all of them but I want to bring awareness that it is completely okay to not be okay. We’re not machines. Ponte las pilas is a saying in Spanish that roughly translates to “get to work” and I want to use the same saying and use it in a different way to highlight how mental health isn’t something to ignore. 36% of Latinos receive mental health in 2021. I want to help bring that number up."
Biography
Homero Carrillo-Leon is a 22 year old Mexican-American artist who resides in the Bay Area. He would learn Illustrator and begin doing digital illustrations which were all in 2D. He would later learn how to work in 3D and start working in Blender, learning how to 3D model which would make some ideas come to life in a different perspective. He would start to create interactive art for others to see and later began working on videos where he worked with sound and editing. Homero’s work consists of references to sports, pop culture, and personal life experiences such as family and culture. Homero enjoys creating art for entertainment purposes but he will occasionally take a more serious approach when the opportunity arises. Homero has also had a professional exhibition curated by Lance Fung and Fung Collaboratives in May of 2022 in downtown Redwood City. Homero Carrillo-Leon studied graphic design at College of San Mateo before transferring to San Jose State University where he now majors in Digital Media Art and is currently pursuing his Bachelors of Fine Arts.
