Star Montana

Courtesy of Star Montana

Star Montana (b. 1987, Los Angeles, CA) is a photo-based artist who lives and works in Los Angeles. She holds an MFA in Art from the University of Southern California, a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from the School of Visual Arts, New York, and an Associate of Arts in Photography from East Los Angeles College. She was born and raised in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East Los Angeles, which is predominantly Mexican American and serves as the backdrop to much of her work. Montana has had solo shows at The Main Museum (2017) and Vincent Price Art Museum (2016). Her work has recently been exhibited throughout Los Angeles at Night Gallery (2021); Charlie James Gallery (2022, 2019, 2016); Residency Art Gallery (2018); LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes Museum (2018); Occidental College (2017); The Mexican Center for Culture and Cinematic Arts at the Mexican Consulate General of Mexico (2017); and Ballroom Marfa, Texas (2017). Montana was an artist-in-residence at Self-Help Graphics & Art, Los Angeles and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York in 2021. Her work is in the collection of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TX, and LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art).

GM: What was your path to becoming an artist?

SM: Even when I was little, I was always interested in image making and thought about what made me want to be an artist. When I was in middle school, I thought the only way you could be an artist was that by doing figurative drawing. My teacher told me that [because] I couldn’t draw, I wouldn’t be able to be an artist. That really destroyed me, so I gave up on art. [Some teachers] think about [art] in terms of a [grading] rubric, and that’s just not what art is. […] A lot of my family has died before I was born, so the only way that I could imagine, understand, or be related to them is through imagery. I started taking pictures with disposable cameras when I was a teenager, and then a friend of mine who was studying photography at East Los Angeles College showed me her work. She had put all of her projects [in her room], and I said, "Wow, this is amazing!" and that I wanted to [be a photographer]. She told me that I could and that community college was open to anybody. It was really inspiring and coincided [with what I was doing] because I was at continuation school and they said that I could get extra credits at community college. I started taking photography classes [in my second semester], and I actually failed my first photo class. Not due to skill, but because my teachers were biased and didn’t understand my images. [My work] was all what my life was reflecting at the time; it was still about street life and my community, which was a lot of my friends [in the] the punk scene, and my cousins, family, and their gang life. If [my teachers] said, “Take a landscape photo” and I took a landscape of East Los Angeles, or a portrait of my cousin with gangs –

GM: Ah, I get it. They didn’t understand because their perception of a landscape is biased. They probably wanted you to take a photograph of the mountains or the beach.

SM: Yeah, so I failed [that class] because it was basically systemic racism. But I didn’t stop trying, and that was the projection of my career. I always tell people that I’m very tenacious, I never give up, and not even just with art, but anything. I’ ve met a lot of people along the way that have given up [for various reasons] – systemic racism, disability, money, or having to [take care of] their family. I have a lot of these issues too, but I just keep going.

GM: Several of your photographs center on family, such as The Earth Cries for Louisa (2019) and Louisa, Homegirls, and Homeboy (2019). Why is this such an important subject matter for you? There seems to be a focus on Louisa specifically – is she your mother or grandmother?

Star Montana, Louisa, Homegirls, and Homeboy, 2019

SM: Louisa was my mother. She passed away in 2010 when she was 49 because of systemic medical failures. She was a recovering drug addict and had been clean for twenty-one years. Even if she was a recovering drug addict at the end, she had a scarlet letter on her and the health care system [felt a] need to erase her by constantly denying her health care. She was diagnosed with Hepatitis-C when she was thirty-seven, and I remember she told me that she just cried [upon receiving her diagnosis]. Her friends who had been heroin users in the seventies also started getting diagnosed at the same time. It’s kind of an HIV/AIDS epidemic that we’re not talking about. I’ ve gone to about twenty funerals due to both the pandemic and so many of my mother’s friends passing away due to Hepatitis-C. [Louisa] tried to do chemotherapy for her liver, but that didn’t work. She should’ ve been on a liver transplant list, [but the health care system] refused to put her on one. My mother believed they did that because she had been a heroin addict. She was given a death sentence because of what she had been, and I would always tell that she didn’t deserve to die because of her mistakes. But she would always [insist] that I didn’t understand, and that you can’t afford to make mistakes because the government will never let you forget it. She had gotten her first felony and gone to prison because someone said that she and her friends had kidnapped them. The prosecutors didn’t have evidence, but because she and her friends were gang members, they threatened them with longer sentences if they did not plead guilty and accept felonies. After that, she said it was so much easier to get other felonies. When I make work about my mother, it’s not just personal but also universal. The system wanted to erase both her and my family. It’s systemic genocide, and when I acknowledge my family and make work about them, I always say their names because it’s now out there forever. It’s one resistance against systemic erasure.

GM: As people of color, we don’t talk enough about how we don’t deserve this shit. Unfortunately, once the bigger powers have you in that system, they will not leave you alone.

SM: Older generations are conditioned to believe that they deserve [systemic violence]. I would constantly remind my mother that she did not deserve that, and I know I don’t deserve that treatment, as a woman of color that’s poor and disabled. I remember talking to my maternal aunt before she passed away; she was homeless and had a mental illness, and she said, “We can’t talk about these things, we have to keep them secret. ” And I said, “Don’t you understand, that’s what makes us sick! Keeping these secrets and thinking that we deserve these things. ”

GM: In November 2021, your first mural, East LA Landscape (2021), was permanently installed at the Restorative Care Village at the County Hospital. What was the inception for this project, and how was it selected to hang at the hospital?

SM: Four years ago, a county-wide call [was announced for the project], so I applied, even though I was hesitant. I was interested in this site because it has a lot of historical traumas that are tied to my family. [The mural] is for people that are rehabilitating with mental illness/health. I very much understand that because I suffer from mental illness, and I’m very candid about that. There were guidelines provided – you couldn’t use the color red or put any people that have direct eye contact because it triggers people. I want to know all this because I’ ve had really bad moments with my mental health. I have PTSD and major depression, and I’m really emphatic to people who are bipolar or schizophrenic. I know how hard it is when they ’re in their bad episodes. [The mural] shows everything going on within East LA, Boyle Heights, and all the way to Downtown. (Continued)

Star Montana, The Earth Cries for Louisa, 2019

Star Montana, East LA Landscape, 2021

The place where I photographed [the image] is on top of the city terrace. It’s a place that I like to go to be meditative and escape all the madness of the city. When I was first starting [my practice], I liked to get on top of the rooftops on Boyle Heights and take pictures like that because I felt like I was trapped and couldn’t go anywhere. For somebody that is going there and passes by [the mural], it might be a meditative act where you feel like you ’re outside the city. I didn’t go to a museum until I was twenty because there was no access for me. The first time that I ever really saw art was public art at the doctor’s office and on the bus or the train. I hope that this [project] helps somebody that’s passing by and that there’s a change in what is selected as public art.

GM: I hope [your mural] provides some solace and peace to someone who might need that. It’s really powerful how art can evoke an emotion out of you, and I’m sure your project has brought that to several people who have seen it.

SM: When I was seven, one of the first times I went there was when my mom’s friend drove me around because I couldn’t go into the ER. I remember feeling really dizzy because we weren’t sure if my uncle, who was seventeen at the time, had been murdered. I remember the Jack in the Box head, and we were driving in a circle. She kept telling me it was going to be okay, but then we picked up my mother and grandmother. They were pale, and I thought, “He’s dead. There’s no way he’s alive based on how they look. ” So, for me to go back and do this piece, after so much suffering – I never like going there, but now there’s a little bit of healing there.

GM: It’s beautiful that you were able to take this really traumatic experience and work your way through that in order to create something that could help someone possibly going through a traumatic experience – whether they ’re going to this place, similarly to you, or are admitted to this place, and they need the help. It all comes full circle. […] You recently collaborated with artist Sean Maung on a special edition zine, On This Side (2022). Why did you two decide to work together, and what is the content that was presented in this project?

SM: I love Sean’s work and think that he is super underrated in the [larger] art world. There’s the photography world, where we all talk to and know each other. Sean does zines and collabs with a lot of people; he’s really appreciated in the underground photo and zine worlds. He’s been doing this for fifteen years and does a lot with street life, which I appreciate because that’s how I got started. He works with a lot of femme artists and photographers, and I really appreciate his energy and how he talks. He suggested we do a zine together; I’ ve never done one, even though people would tell me to. It’s just that the opportunity hadn’t come and I haven’t self-published anything. He helped me and we collaborated on this; when I sold my copies, a lot of the art world was really excited and wondering who Sean is. But the photo world knows who he is, so it’s really interesting how people tend to still think that photography doesn’t exist in the art world. It’s really weird in that way. I feel like if photographers don’t fit into certain bubbles – like if we don’t get our MFA’s we “don’t count” , but not all of us go into one trajectory. [Sean and I] have had so many conversations and we’ ve known each other for five years. I’ ve loved his work for longer [than that], so to have the opportunity to collaborate with him and send him work was cool.

GM: In September 2022, you debuted a photographic series for The Los Angeles Times, who states that you were “ spending the hottest months as an immunocompromised person existing in isolation. ” How did this project materialize over the COVID-19 pandemic, and what is the subject matter of the photographs?

SM: As an immunocompromised person, I’m very isolated. For the first eighteen months of the COVID pandemic, I rarely saw my family. [If I did it was] through a car window and we wore masks. It was extremely lonely, [especially because] my family is a big part of my projects. I have a small group of friends, so to not really see them either was insanity for me. (Continued)

Star Montana, Star in the middle of the water, 2022

Star Montana, Star alone at Starbucks in Downtown LA, 2022

I wanted to document what does it mean to be an immunocompromised person in the summer; I suffer from major depression during those months due to past trauma. Sometimes that means being in the house a lot of the time, or going to Little Tokyo in Downtown LA early on a weekday when it’s really empty. [These are] photographs of me in these spaces that might be really crowded later in the day or on the weekend, but instead it’s just me in these isolated moments. If you ’re an LA native, you wonder if the place is always busy, but if you ’re immunocompromised, or can’t be around people, or are just an isolated person, you have to navigate it. It’s not just taxing on the body, but also the mind, because I can only go on certain days and at certain times to avoid crowds. It’s so emotionally taxing in those ways too, and [this project is] really setting up the camera and thinking what does this mean [for me], because I’m always emotionally thinking and navigating these mazes. If I want to do this or if I want to go this place, because if I mess up, this could mean death for me. [My partner and I] went to Hawaii for my cousin’s wedding, and I caught COVID on the plane during the return trip. I was really sick, super isolated for ten days, and really scared. My partner had already caught COVID earlier in the month. I photographed my experience because being alone in different spaces is really somber in that I can’t really enjoy existence in a normal way. I have to really push everything away; even when I go to art exhibition openings, I always try to go to the first half hour or hour because I know everyone hates going at the beginning. That means that I will not see most people, I always go with a mask on, and I go [through it] really quickly. If I start to see too many people, I say goodbye because I can’t stay for too long. I will converse with people, but then I have to go, which means that I have no social life. I have to apologize to a lot of people because I can’t go to their openings, but I can’t risk my life. So, I show that in the pictures; it’s a lot of emptiness, but the mission statement of it is how for me and a lot of immunocompromised people, we’re being left behind and forgotten. I think all the time that when I’m gone and my work just remains, it [represents] the act of not being forgotten. With these images, you can’t forget me.

Star Montana, Star creating work at the San Gabriel River, 2022

GM: What are you currently working on in your practice?

SM: By the Rivers, I Stood and Stared into the Sun (2019 – Ongoing) was my MFA thesis show, but it’s actually a body of work that I’ ve been thinking about for ten years. It started with these ideas of archival images – what does the archive mean, and can I use the archive as my own? I’ ve been trained as a straight photographer, meaning you take the images and don’t alter them in old-fashioned or conceptual ways. I thought about incorporating the archive and being more conceptual, which is why I went to grad school. I wanted to [continue the project], which really thinks about water, migration, and death. My family migrated from El Paso to Los Angeles, and I realized that they had always stood by water. We were by the LA River in Boyle Heights; there’s this idea of upward mobility, meaning that my family had always aspired to go east. Upward ability for Mexican Americans was to go east and to the cities after East LA. [My family] was near the San Gabriel River, which [supported] the first people of the land here. The Los Angeles River was not reliable; it would swell sometimes and would be a little stream. The Gabrielino River was always consistent, so I realized that my family had lived in El Monte, right by the Whittier Narrows. I tracked the different places where they had been and photographed these bodies of water. All of these rivers are now polluted because of man-made irrigation [systems] that try to unsuccessfully tame water. I’ ve also photographed myself near these waters because most of the people in my family have passed away, so I use myself as a stand-in for the deaths in the family. I also went to New Mexico and tracked the Rio Grande, which was really beautiful. In my first iteration [of the project], I only went to El Paso and tracked the [family] origins with the water, so I’m really interested in [expanding] that.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. It took place in November 2022.

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