¡Oye! Cuéntame un Cuento, organized by The Latinx Project in collaboration with Stephanie Rodriguez, is an exhibition featuring four Latinx illustrators exploring biographical comics through the lens of Adversity, Community, and Oral Tradition. Artists Sharon Lee De La Cruz, Breena Nuñez, Daisy Ruiz and Stephanie Rodriguez bring a much needed spotlight to the Latinx lived experience, with their investment in visual storytelling.
Oral Tradition is an integral part of the Latinx community. It starts in childhood when children beg their elders “Cuéntame un Cuento”, or the cuentos are given anyway. We pass down these cuentos for generations, and with time, modifications are made for entertainment's sake. Often taking an autobiographical approach, these creators navigate gender, queerness, migratory displacement, and ethno-racial identities in a format that has historically underrepresented femme and non-white voices. ¡Oye! Cuéntame un Cuento brings these barrier-breaking comics to the limelight.
Visit the exhibition virtually from September 15th - December 3rd. In-person viewing is open to all NYU Students/Staff/Faculty at 20 Cooper Sq. for the duration of the exhibition.
Breena Nuñez, La Matriarca (2018)
Daisy Ruiz, Built Like SpongeBob (2021)
Sharon Lee De La Cruz Wild Seed (2021)
Stephanie Rodriguez Stories From The Boogy Down: A Bronx Summertime Tradition (2019)
ARTISTS
Sharon Lee De La Cruz
Sharon Lee De La Cruz is a multi-disciplinary artist and activist from New York City. Her thought-provoking pieces address a range of issues related to tech, social justice, sexuality, and race. De La Cruz’s work ranges from comics, graffiti, and public-art murals to more recent explorations in interactive sculptures, animation, and coding. She graduated with a BFA from Cooper Union and a MPS from NYU-ITP. She is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, Processing Foundation Fellowship, and a Tin House Summer Workshop participant.
Breena Nuñez
Breena Nuñez is an Afro-Guatemalan-Salvadoran cartoonist living in San Francisco, CA. She creates diary comics that often explore themes surrounding the awkwardness of racism, being a queer Afrodescendiente from the Bay Area, and understanding what it means to be Central American from the US. Their hope as a cartoonist & educator is to help BIPOC folks give themselves permission to express their personal stories through the language of comics.
Breena’s comics are primarily self-published as zines, but you will also find some comics in publications such as The New Yorker: Daily Shouts and The Nib, as well as anthologies like Tales From La Vida: A Latinx Comics Anthology, Drawing Power (Eisner Award Winner 2020), and Be Gay, Do Comics! (Ignatz Award Winner 2020).
Daisy Ruiz
Daisy Ruiz, better known online as @Draizys, is a Bronx-bred Illustrator, Founder and Creative Director of award-winning compilation zine Deadass Tho NYC, and a one-third of WOC art Collective Spicy Mango Comics. Her illustrations take inspiration from her 5 year-long Scene phase, her East Coast Chicana upbringing, and everyday NYC living, just to name a few.
Stephanie Rodriguez
Stephanie Rodriguez is a Bronx-born comic book artist and illustrator. She graduated from the School of Visual Arts in 2011 with a BFA in Illustration. Stephanie creates illustrations and self-published comics depicting the highs and lows of everyday life. Stephanie's work has been featured on BuzzFeed, Remezcla, Vayner Media and Michigan Radio (NPR). Her debut young adult graphic novel is set to publish in Spring 2023 by Kokila, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
Exhibition Tour
We kicked off #LatinxHeritageMonth with the opening of "¡Oye! Cuéntame un Cuento", our latest exhibition featuring Latinx illustrators Daisy Ruiz, Breena Nuñez, Sharon Lee De La Cruz, and Stephanie Rodriguez. Watch Stephanie's exhibition tour below to learn more about the artists and what you can hope to see online and in-person.