Trials and Tribulations

Roberto Torres Mata is an interdisciplinary artist who explores themes of human and animal migration through lithography, woodcuts, papermaking, wood carving, and textiles. Mata is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin–Madison with an MFA in printmaking. “Trials and Tribulations” is a suite of lithographs Mata created during the global COVID-19 pandemic. According to Mata, the series does not narrate a story, but is rather a collection of open-ended images reflecting concerns related to migration. Through the images, Mata contemplates migration as a metaphor for personal and perhaps spiritual journeys, or as articulated in the colophon for the portfolio, “the ability to move freely in search of our fullest and best selves.” As an artist of Mexican descent, Mata uses both his subject matter and the technique of traditional crayon lithography to pay thoughtful homage to the work of socially conscious Mexican lithographers Leopoldo Méndez, José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Rufino Tamayo.