An homage to V.'s father Crisanto's immigration from Mexico over the Rio Grande River to Central California decades ago.
V comments, "Crisanto Crossing the Rio Grande is the second portrait I painted of my father. The first was of him in his backyard garden in Livingston, CA. This second portrait is of my father crossing the Rio Grande for the first time as a teenager. The composition is based on a figure wading into a calm body of water. For me, it’s a kind of baptism into the difficult life he has lived as an undocumented Mexican laborer who would go on to get his green card and raise a family. I’m so thankful for the chance my father took to provide his family the best life possible.
I was also thinking about two famous paintings; of Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze and of the Baptism of Christ by Andrea del Verrcchio.
For me, my dad crossing the Rio Grande, is heroic and transformative. I wanted to depict the spiritual connection that Mexican people have with rivers and the land different from the pictures and histories of colonization and empire."