Enrique Figueredo: Pasó por aquí

Pasó por aquí, in English, translates to: passed by here. It is the beginning of several sentences carved into the sandstone by Spanish conquistadores at El Morro National Monument. Coincidentally, a less formal translation is: happened by here, which is more fitting in order to place the emergence of Latinx culture in what is now the United States in New Mexico. That record exists as one of the earliest inscriptions at El Morro dated 1605. The painful and complex history that merges Indigenous American, Spanish, and African cultures is also evidenced by New Mexico’s Spanish missions. The ambition that sculpted the handmade smooth adobe walls by a united, nascent identity is palpable and parallel to the entries preserved on the slick sandstone.

Enrique Figueredo carves the formidable, historic churches into woodblocks mimicking the cutting of living mud and rock. Figueredo makes rubbings of the inscriptions with graphite and paper, satisfying the physical connection between his Spanish ancestry and the New Mexico landscape. The carved line and the mission structures are treated as individual marks that speak the same language and employ relief printing to retell a well-known narrative. These lines are a measure of time, labor, location, and spirituality. Collectively they archive naturally decaying landmarks and storytelling.