Viola Delgado
Book Cover Artist
Viola Delgado has exhibited in several solo and group shows throughout Texas and the nation. She has organized and curated several shows of Latina artists held at the Dallas Latino Cultural Center.
Her career started as a social worker for the Dallas Independent School District. But in 1986, she left stability behind and struck out on her own as an artist. Her art career includes teaching art to young people, curating art works at various art centers in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, including the Latino Cultural Center in Dallas, Texas and organizing amazing exhibitions of Latina arts. She has created huge public and private murals, a 20-foot glass floor mosaic located at Terminal D in the DFW International Airport and was the first ethnic artist to create an entire exhibit at the Dallas Area Rapid Transit rail station.
Viola attended the Art League School in Alexandria, VA and Dallas Baptist University in Dallas, Texas with a major in psychology. She was born in Sinton, Texas and resides in Dallas, Texas.
About the Painting
The painting is called it Mami Arriving or Mommy’s Arrival (mami llegando in Spanish). A tall, slender and well-dressed lady with a valise heads toward a house. In the window, watching the arrival is a young girl and older woman. There are lots of assumptions you can associate with the painting, however, part of how why Viola paints with no faces is to allow the viewers to build their own relationships and meaning into the painting.
This particular painting relates to a story about my own grandmother. When she was very young, her mother (my great grandmother) left the family and never returned. No one ever knew or said why she left. There was plenty of speculation. She was a beautiful, tall, slender woman and just one day, she just up and left. I can remember growing up and sometimes catching my grandmother just standing with her hands on her hips looking out the window, as if she was looking for something or someone to come to the house. — Viola Delgado