Today we’d like to introduce you to Victor Casas.
Victor , we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’m a transfronterizo—my life straddles that imaginary line between El Paso and Juárez.
I’m a self-taught artist. I found my voice on the walls around 1993, 1995, through graffiti. But life sent me on a detour; I served in the Army. When I came back in 2010, I slowly picked up painting again. It wasn’t just about painting anymore; it was about survival. As Mask, I transform the internal battle for survival against PTSD and the external fight against the cultural erasure of the Segundo Barrio into societal murals that serve as the definitive “I am” statement for the community on the brick walls of the borderlands.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Easy? Para nada (not at all). I wouldn’t call it smooth; I’d call it necessary. The biggest challenge was coming home from the Army and dealing with PTSD. The noise in my head was constant, and the only way to quiet it was to channel it onto a canvas or a wall. Art was my therapy, but the return was slow.
The main lesson I’ve learned is that the struggle is the fuel. The art has to be as raw as the lessons you learn on these streets. Look at the fight against gentrification in your own neighborhood—La Gente faces this challenge every single day, trying to save the cultural history from being erased.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
As of now most of what I do is rooted in and for the communities I work for. I don’t paint for the developers and tourists; I paint to represent my mom and the people of the barrio.
* The Murals: My work gets attention because it’s real. It deals with the raw complexity of life here at the border. My series, Border What!?, started the conversation outside of El Paso and ended up being featured in The New York Times. That platform helps get the story out.
* Fighting Erasure: I have been working on Los Ojos del Barrio (The Eyes of the Barrio). This is an ongoing project—a huge mural project using photos from people of the barrio, dating as far back as 1917, but mainly from the ’60s through the ’90s. This is my direct response to gentrification— It’s all about painting our history onto the brick walls so it cannot be ignored or paved over in this fight against cultural erasure.
* Graffinearts: I’m also building a cultural space, a studio, called Graffinearts. That project, however, is currently on hold. We had to pivot to focus on the immediate, real issues in the community: displacement, gentrification, and artwashing. The fight for our cultural survival takes priority.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
Like most people I’m in a constant battle with “Who am I?” and “I am.”
This is a profound question. For me, the battle between “Who am I?” and “I am” is the engine that drives every mural. It’s the Chicanx, Fronterix and Transfronterix cultura distilled into paint.
The “I am” is the definitive, unyielding answer I give back through my murals.
* I Am A Storyteller: My work confronts the brutal, real-life consequences of the border policies. I take the photos of the braceros being sprayed with DDT and combine them with other elements of the silenced ancestral history to conjure memories.
* I Am My Community: Through projects like Los Ojos del Barrio, I state emphatically: “Semos Segundo Barrio.” This is the “I am” of the neighborhood itself, fighting cultural erasure and standing against the developers who only see profit, and against the tokens and boot lickers who try to help them sanitize and sell our culture.
* I Am Purpose: That feeling of purpose—of fighting for my people and giving back—is the ultimate resolution of the identity conflict. When a local resident connects with a mural and says, ” I can relate to that ” that is the most powerful “I am” statement I can make. That feeling of purpose, of knowing I am doing what I can in this ongoing fight for We The People, that’s my true joy.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @aka_mask @losojosdelbarrio
