Janeth Aparicio Vázquez (b. Los Angeles, CA) is an interdisciplinary visual artist, permaculture enthusiast, and historian as curandera of Mixtec and P'urhepecha descent.

 

My artistic practice encompasses drawing and painting, crafts-based mixed-media, and the cultivation of gardens. With this range of materials, I create tender offerings to my communities: past, present, and future. 

 

I honor my long-ago elders by continuing the tradition of visually recording history.  Indigenous scholars in pre- and post-conquest Mexico recorded histories in visual codices. Each surviving codex provides modern-day scholars with invaluable information. As a descendant of the Mixtec and P'urepecha people, this cultural continuation is important to me. 

 

I explore personal, communal, and ecological histories of South Central, Los Angeles, and Mexico. These histories reflect the intricate interconnectedness between the natural world, culture, and personal narratives, and honor and guide to ancestral knowledge and imagination. Following the path of our long-ago elders is our true way of becoming wise. With these 'medicinal' histories, I seek to, in the words of Boricua poet-scholar Aurora Levins Morales, "re-establish the connections between peoples and their histories, to reveal the mechanisms of power, the steps by which their current condition of oppression was achieved... but also to reveal the multiplicity, creativity, and persistence of resistance among the oppressed."  

 

My work’s materials, content, and methods reflect this ethos. I use blue ballpoint pen ink to honor justice-system-impacted artists who came before me and to advocate for justice reform, labor rights, and respect for the land.

 

J.A.V Studio work has been presented at institutions such as California State University, Northridge (2025), The Brooklyn Children's Museum (Brooklyn, NY, 2024), and the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (Santa Cruz, CA, 2022), among others. Earned awards include a Civic Service Recognition from the County of Los Angeles (2024), Espolón Tequila's Modern Maverick Artist Award (National Association of Latino Arts & Culture, 2024), and the California Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship Award: Emerging Artist (Los Angeles Performance Practice for LA County, 2023). Recent mural works are located at Ruben F. Salazar Park, painted as co-lead teaching artist for the Boyle Heights Arts Conservatory's Mural Workforce Academy (Los Angeles, CA, 2023), and at Dr. Owen Lloyd Knox Elementary School (Los Angeles, CA, 2024).