Interview: Diego Espaillat on Transforming the Familiar

By Madeline Trice

Diego Espaillat is a sculpture artist from NYC. He graduated from Lyme Academy College in 2017, his first residency and solo show were with Flux Factory in 2021, and he’s exhibited with Calderon Gallery and Chashama Gallery. Espaillat takes inspiration from his heritage to reimagine the Dominican folk art of Carnival masks. “I take familiar things and make them spectacular and unique so that people can experience something new and fresh with them” (Espaillat). He’s trained with renowned folk artists in Santiago and adapted the practice to make it his own, allowing the characteristic horns and ornate adornment of the Lechon Joyero, Vejignate, and Diablo Conjuelo influence all his sculpture. This summer Diego Espaillat is participating in the AnkhLave Arts Alliance’s 2024 Garden Project Fellowship​, visit the AnkhLave house on Governors Island or go to his website to view his art. 

(Trice) Having been born and raised in NYC, what was it like getting to travel to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic to work with folk artists? What was your experience with traditional art styles before then?

​(Espaillat) Firstly it's a reminder of how American I am. In New York, I'm Puerto Rican and Dominican but on the islands it’s so obvious I’m from NYC. Traveling back to the islands is always super enriching for me though—especially meeting with artisans & contemporary artists. It's like meeting fellow coworkers, sharing techniques and talking shop. When it comes to “Traditional Art” I was trained as a classical sculptor at Lyme Academy, we spent hours and hours working from the live model, studying anatomy and building representational forms in clay. But the folky stuff started at home and the homes of family members for sure. People usually had lots of mini souvenir masks from DR and PR and trinkets growing up and I would always stare at them. And of course experiencing Carnival. 

“Cabeza De Vaca” 2021. Newspaper, gesso, spray paint, latex paint, craft paper, Almidon (23”x23”x19”)

(Trice) Vejigante and Diablo Conjuelo masks are clearly very important to your artistic practice, even in your pieces that aren’t masks, those characteristic horn-like shapes and spotted patterns are often very present in your work. Could you speak on the history of the masks a little and its significance to you and your art?

​(Espaillat) Yeah they’re quite important to me. When I first used them in my work it was because I felt that the masks could represent me in a way. I was living in Dyckman, a very Dominican neighborhood in upper Manhattan at the time and it felt a connection to Diablo Cojuelo and Vejigantes in how they made their way to the islands and developed with how my family had arrived in the US and grew as well. There's a lot of history from European Pagan rituals to christian and African ones. But really the characters change and develop with the taste of the people who participate in Carnival, so to say the Carnival today has some of the same characters but is very different from the Carnival of my father’s youth and years before. I love that about it though, it's always evolving, changing, morphing and I feel like I can mold it from there. 

“Veji” Newspaper, gesso, spray paint, latex paint, craft paper, Almidon 9”x16”x8”

(Trice) In your artist statement you talk about your masks saying, “Espaillat renders the oxymoron of Dominican-American masculinity in his work, both flamboyantly adorned and defensively horned to protect its own construction of hardened paper. The mask as an object is also intended to be worn, so these masks acknowledge the performance of masculinity and the opportunity to take off the mask” (Espaillat). Could you speak more on the themes of performance and masculinity in your work?

(Espaillat) I think we all put on masks to get through certain situations. My wife's always calling me out, she's like “You talk like this with these friends and then you talk like this with those friends.” There's some code switching that happens throughout all different situations whether you're in the grocery store, you're hanging out with a different group of people, or introducing yourself to someone you don't know, and I think that the mask can embody that. They can be colorful and playful, but they're also always in sort of defense mode. 

​There's sort of like a spectacle to aggression sometimes and I think that it gets kind of worshiped, especially in adolescence. You know, it's like there's this explosiveness that is unpredictable, especially in young men, I feel like, and then later you have to grow out of it in a way and it gets masked or hopefully it changes and you mature, but it's just an interesting sort of space for me to contemplate the sort of the performativeness and playfulness. Like, you know, sometimes underneath the smile, there's something—a pretty flower has a sharp horn too maybe.

“Punto” 21”x20”x20” Paper, Foam, Spray Paint, Acrylic Paint

(Trice) What’s been your experience of Carnival and how has it influenced your art?

(Espaillat) It's a really fun, fantastic, amazing thing. Think of, like, Mardi Gras or something. People prepare all year for it, the artisans and the people who are involved. And, you know, once carnival ends, they take like a few weeks off and they get back into planning their costumes and outfits for the next year. It's an amazing thing that takes up a lot of their lives. They live for it, and that effort and that love forms a community.

I’ve experienced it as a child, getting pushed in by my parents and kind of a getting sent into a town square because a lot of times the promenades lead into a town square or it's like a final pit where all the groups are together. You kind of get sent in there and there's lavishly costumed demons and characters and some of them are cracking whips, some of them have these big balloons. It's sort of equally terrifying and fun and that really stuck with me forever.

It was interesting to experience that as a child and then later as an adult and a creative. To get in the workshop with these artisans, get in the studio and work on stuff and see the other side and the real community aspect of it was really, really interesting.


(Trice) What was it like working with folk artists such as Los Tiranos (The Tyrants)?

(Espaillat) They're so generous and so funny. It was El Chevy, which is his nickname, the studio was in the back of his and his wife's house. At that time, when I first went to visit them, it was actually in their colmado, which is like a bodega, so literally people would be purchasing stuff and we'd be working there to the side.
There's not so much written about how to make the stuff. It's a real oral history that you need to be there and be present for and get hands on with people sharing your techniques and just getting to know each other and being friends. Almost like family, it's like working in somebody's living room together. The boundaries kind of dissolve quickly and you have a lot in common when you share a love for this, the same kind of a practice and craftsmanship. So it's really just amazing to sit there. Whenever I go back and visit I make an effort to stop by and say hi to the guys.​

Obra #2” 2021. Newspaper, craft paper, almidon, spray paint, latex paint 21”x20”x23”

​(Trice) In what ways do you feel you’ve adapted traditional art styles to make them your own, and how much has learning those practices influenced your other art? Given the history of community and collaboration that goes into keeping traditional practices alive, have you ever thought about teaching the skills you learned while studying with folk artists? 

​(Espaillat) Yeah, abstracting the form’s and omitting the eye holes or mouth’s is kind of how I pay respect to the people doing the real thing for carnival. They’re wearing their mask’s through a crowd of people in full costume and mine usually end up on a wall. But using paper for sure, it’s this material anyone can use and that’s all over the place ready to be thrown away and you can take it and make art with it is a beautiful thing. It helps me work fast and not be afraid to make changes when I need to. I do workshops often and explain the paper-mache practice and making natural glue at home from Cassava or Yuca starch. I love teaching and sharing the technique and I hope it lives on in as many ways as possible. I’ll even give people a run down in the DM’s.

(Trice) You’ve used hookahs in your art as well, in one piece you’ve decorated it with the same spotted pattern often seen on your masks. What is the significance of the hookah pipes and your choice to represent them in a way so closely resembling this traditional practice?

​(Espaillat) Hookahs are very popular in nightlife and leisure in certain scenes . Although I only use them on special occasions, I think there's something really celebratory about them: they bring people together. So naturally I had to make a piece to show my appreciation and also mark it for the culture. The dot’s are not just a reference for me, they go into energy and abstract fields. It's a way to visually charge the piece, to think of the atom’s, the smoke and saliva alive inside the pipe. ​

"Middle Earth" 2022. Paper, plastic, acrylic paint.

(Trice) You created a piece in the shape of a globe with only a single island on it and spikes coming off the island. What’s the significance of the globe, the island, and the spikes?

(Espaillat)The globe is called “Middle Earth.” It’s kind of like a funny reference to Lord of the Rings and it's also kind of thinking of what happens when you take an international, or a country's issue and you put it under a microscope and you sort of plant that in the middle of the earth or in the middle of a globe. Globes are also traditionally made out of paper, so it's interesting to keep this relationship of paper and paper crafts in my art by referencing another paper object.

​Hispaniola, or Ay-ti, which is the indigenous name (which became the name of Haiti), is an island of two countries, the Dominican Republican and Haiti. There's a very tumultuous relationship and history there and even that silhouette can enrage people because it means a lot. It's a very politically charged topography. So, for me, I thought that I can show that by sort of putting it on the microscope, by making it the central country or landmass on the globe and then covering it with those spikes. For me that adds another layer which shows sort of the prickly or contentious nature of the surface of the island and the color patterns are slightly different on both sides, which kind of indicates the Dominican side and the Haitian side.

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