Jimmy James Canales

Jimmy James Canales is a performance artist living and working in San Antonio, Texas. He presents his work through site-specific performances, IRL (in real life) inhabitations, treks tethered online, camouflage spectacle suits, and endurance-based actions. He traverses the relationships between artificial, natural, and digital which realities. His interests include the representation of the mediated wilderness, his renegotiated “in progress” Tejano identity and survival field manuals. Among his many adventures Canales has romanced a cactus, walked across San Antonio five times then all the way to Austin, sacrificed a low-rider bicycle, and conjured up his alter-ego: Mapache Man. In 2015 he set off on a seven-month cross-country residency focused on the experience of nature through culture and making art outside the studio. During the excursion he performed on Spectacle Island in Boston Harbor and was an artist in residence at Vermont Studio Center. He is working on a series of exoskeleton performance suits that function as chrome cyborg customizations to the body. The aluminum infrastructure of the suit creates a platform for mounting, modification, display and camouflaging. Currently living in San Antonia, he is working at Texas State University and the Alamo Community College as an adjunct art lecturer.

jimmyjamescanales.com

This bio/description was originally published in 2016 and updated in 2017. For more current information, please refer to the award recipient's website (if provided).