Using discarded produce bags collected while working at Maya’s Farm in Phoenix, Arizona, interdisciplinary artist Gloria Martinez-Granados cross-stitches portraits that trace the labor behind the nation’s food-supply chain. Two of her portraits are on view at Phoenix Art Museum as part of the ongoing exhibition The Collection: 1960 – Now. Installed in the section Material Constructs, they appear alongside other works that explore the narrative potential of repurposed materials.
Martinez-Granados begins by converting photographs into custom gridded patterns, mapping shadows and features into coded marks. She then recreates that grid directly onto commercial mesh before stitching the image by hand. The produce bags she uses often arrive torn or frayed, marked by the wear of hurried handling. “When I was first working with the mesh, something that stood out to me was the way the bags were discarded and the violence that happens to these materials,” she says. Sometimes, Martinez-Granados reinforces weak points or mends small tears. Other times, she leaves the damage intact, allowing the material’s previous life to remain legible within the finished work. That sensitivity to what the mesh has endured is reflected in her choice of subject.
In Retrato de Pablo, Martinez-Granados renders bracero Pablo Ocón Franco in a delicate palette of purples, pinks, and browns, his face set against a bright yellow background that gathers around him like a halo. The portrait is part of a larger series that examines the United States’ Bracero Program, the World War II–era agreement that brought Mexican laborers to the US during agricultural shortages. Despite promises of fair wages and humane treatment, braceros endured long hours under harsh conditions, often without pay. Made from 12,321 stitches, Retrato de Pablo took Martinez-Granados months to complete and became an exercise in attention toward those whose narratives have largely been erased.
Retrato de Pablo, 2024, cross-stitch on produce bags.
