Expanding Queer Latinx Art, One Card at a Time
Artist Félix Frédéric d’Eon has created a queer version of a Mexican classic with his deck of lotería cards, which feature erotic, romantic, and beautiful hand-drawn images of queer folks and relationships.
La lotería has been referred to as “Mexican bingo,” and has been popular in Spain since the 18th century. Lotería travelled with Spanish colonists to Mexico, then across the U.S. as Latinx people migrated.
By 1887 a Mexican-French businessman named Don Clemente Jacques was printing a version of the lotería deck that is still in production today, three generations after its creation. It has become the most recognizable version of the game, and can still be purchased in Mexico and the U.S.
Frédéric d’Eon shares many similarities with the late Don Clemente. He is also a Mexican-French artist, and he hopes that his “Gay Lotería” deck will be able to create an image of “queer Mexican-ness” that will be as recognizable and inherently Latinx as the Don Clemente Gallo Lotería.
Frédéric d’Eon told Vivala that despite his mixed parentage and the years he has spent in the U.S and abroad, he feels most connected to his Mexican heritage. He was born in Guadalajara, but currently lives and works out of Mexico City.
He also told Vivala that he is concerned about the lack of queer Latinx art.
“I know that there are some queer artists doing really great work, but at large, art made with a specifically queer intent has been made by white artists for a gay, White audience,” he said.
He believes that queer Latinx perspectives like his own have been underreprese
nted, something that he strives to change not only with his lotería series but with his art in general.
Frédéric d’Eon has been a professional artist for more than a decade, drawing inspiration from Classical masters, comic books, and Edo printmakers. His bio states that he “seeks to normalize the marginal” by “erasing shame and celebrating desire.” His work encompasses a multitude of queer identities, including galleries like Queer Girls, Tarot, Sporting Boys, and Leather.
You can see more of (and buy!) Frédéric d’Eon’s work on his site and his Etsy.
