Resist (2017)

Melanie Cervantes
12″ x 18″
2-color screenprint on Astrobrights paper, Printed in my kitchen, San Leandro, CA, March 2017

“It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.” Assata Shakur, excerpt from the “To My People” written by Assata and taped as a prison broadcast on July 4,1963 while incarcerated.

The first screenprints of 2017 with screens prepared at our new studio and printed in my cozy cocina. The horrors of the Trump regime and its supporters have unfurled at a dizzying speed. Getting my hands busy by echoing the wisdom of Assata Shakur as a revolutionary precept feels like kinetic poetry.

These prints were inspired by the work of Sister Corita Kent as well as the massive mobilizations of people in cities all across the US protesting Ban #1 at airports. I saw an exhibit of her work in Portland and loved the electric color palette and the heavy use of text. Alot of her work is about her Catholicism and some of her work about political struggles of the time. She was heavily influenced by Pop Art.