“Smile Now, Cry Later” SOLO EXHIBITION OPENING: @mainframearts 5 PM - 8 PM FIRST FRIDAY JULY 5 - JULY 24 Smile Now, Cry Later is a series of 16 paintings exploring my childhood experiences of this cultural phrase I grew up knowing too well. This phrase reminds me of a time when these events were happening. We couldn’t cry, we couldn’t react, we had to just smile through it. But going to jail to talk to our parents, or sacrifice our childhood because of the traumas of systems that criminalize drug addicts and immigrants leaves deep marks. When my mom was deported and I was at the hearing, I wasn’t able to cry because I had been so conditioned not to. These paintings are my way of trying to cry now while paying homage to the aesthetics of Chicano culture and art.  I pulled out journals from my youth to revisit events that scarred me to try to make sense of the pain and change it into something else. As a father, these memories are resurfacing now because my children are reopening my ...