Local artist Johnny Willems is one of five artists featured in the ‘Sopa de Letras’ exhibit at the Fonseca-Dubois Gallery inside the Indianapolis Liberation Center. The exhibit, which runs until July 12, showcases Willems’ artwork, including three risograph prints that explore his experiences with wrestling and his identity as a Mexican, Chilean, and Indonesian man.

Exploring Identity through Art

Willems, who started wrestling at the age of 4, says that the sport has helped him connect to his identity and culture through Mexican wrestling, also known as lucha libre. His artwork, including a three-layer print of a luchador in an elaborate mask and pink sparkly spandex, adds feminine and soft hints to the traditionally masculine sport.

The ‘Sopa de Letras’ exhibit, which translates to ‘alphabet letter soup’ in English, aims to answer two questions: What does it look like to be a Latino queer person in the Midwest? And how do we see cultural influences reflected in the artists’ work? The exhibit features photography, printmaking, paintings, and mixed media, with most artwork not for sale.

Willems’ prints, ‘Intricate Rituals #1’ and ‘Intricate Rituals #2,’ feature scenes of two men engaged in an American folk-style wrestling practice. The images were taken from a wrestling guide book from the late 1970s. Willems says that the intention behind the prints is not meant to be intimate, but when isolated and looked at without context, they can be seen as intimate.

A Celebration of Diversity

The ‘Sopa de Letras’ exhibit is a celebration of the diversity of queer Latino experiences. The exhibit’s curator, Andie Arana Gómez, says that the goal is to present the diversity of queer Latino experiences and to acknowledge the different hurdles and hardships that individuals face. The exhibit is free and open to the public, with gallery hours from noon to 8 pm, Tuesday through Saturday, and noon to 6 pm on Sunday.

Original reporting: Mirror Indy — read the source article.