Abstract painter Nora Chapa Mendoza, 92, receives $100K Kresge Eminent Artist award

A puckish gleam in her eye, 92-year-old Nora Chapa Mendoza shouts, “I wish I could remember!” and throws her head back in laughter.

Chapa Mendoza — who has been named the 2024 Kresge Eminent Artist, metro Detroit’s most prestigious arts award — may occasionally be at a loss for specific memories, but her wit and talent remain sharp and steady as ever.

The achievement celebrates a still-burning career of more than five decades in painting and activism, and includes an unrestricted prize of $100,000 (that’s a new dollar amount; in previous years, it’s been $50,000), along with production of a short film, a monograph and other events and honors by Kresge and Kresge Arts in Detroit, an office of the College for Creative Studies (CCS), which administers the effort.

“When they called, I thought someone was playing a trick on me,” Chapa Mendoza said of learning about the honor.

“We thought they were preying on the elderly,” said her daughter, Laurie Psarianos.

When she learned the honor was real, Chapa Mendoza was “very, very happy.”

“Not so much for the money,” she said, “but for the recognition. Like a life well spent.”

The award comes on the heels of a tremendously successful year for the artist, as 2023 saw Detroit’s historic Scarab Club honor her with a career retrospective that culminated with her being invited to “sign the beam” — a decadeslong tradition that features the signatures of art world legends on the building’s ceiling and side beams. More than 200 locally and internationally renowned artists’ signatures reside there, from Diego Rivera to Norman Rockwell, and including previous Kresge Eminent Artists Charles McGee, Bill Rauhauser, Marie Woo and Shirley Woodson.

More: Legendary Detroit artist and educator Shirley Woodson wins Kresge honor and $50K

“Putting my name up there — I mean, up there, with Diego — that’s tops,” Chapa Mendoza said. “It doesn’t get much better.”

Chapa Mendoza is a founding member of the Michigan Hispanic Cultural/Art Association and former owner of her own gallery. She accepted the Governor’s Award and Michigan Artist of the Year from Gov. John Engler in 1999 in honor of her long-lasting cultural commitment to the state and, most notably, Southwest Detroit.

“Her work conveys a rare combination of grace and perseverance in the face of the innumerable societal obstacles placed in the path of an artist with Chicano and Indigenous roots,’’ said Kresge President and CEO Rip Rapson. “She has inspired multiple generations with her full and powerful embrace of the overlapping causes of women, migrant workers and civil rights.”

College for Creative Studies President Donald L. Tuski agreed.

“With deep ties to CCS and the Detroit community, Nora Chapa Mendoza is an inspiring example of an artist, educator and activist,” he said. “Her dedication to addressing critical messages about civil rights and Chicano identity in her artwork communicates important historical and current issues. It is an honor to administer the Kresge Arts in Detroit program on behalf of The Kresge Foundation and to celebrate Nora Chapa Mendoza as the 2024 Kresge Eminent Artist.”

Chapa Mendoza, however — a humorous and joyful presence — remains serious and modest when discussing her work.

“I don’t think about anything when I paint,” she said, waving a hand over her eyes and upward to the sky. “It’s just my eyes and the canvas and the paint, and I just go with the flow.

“Someone asked me how I make Hispanic art. I’m Hispanic, and I’m the one that’s painting. So just because it’s abstract and doesn’t look like ‘Hispanic art,’ doesn’t mean it’s not. But, at the same time, I also do paintings that express issues with Latinos, Native Americans and women.”

At her West Bloomfield Township home and studio, a photo of Hispanic labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez rests in a frame on her desk in commemoration of a series of paintings and postcards he commissioned from her in the late 1980s; the works were seen around the world.

“In Southwest Detroit, there was a celebration when she signed the Scarab Club beam,” said Osvaldo “Ozzie” Rivera, a well-known Detroit historian, musician and community activist. “A celebration across sectors, not just the artistic community. The business community showed up.”

Born in Texas but a metro Detroiter since 1953, Chapa Mendoza has been an educator and mentor in metro Detroit for many decades while creating bold and truth-telling artwork. She marks the latest recognition with a generous grin as she continues working in her studio.

“I don’t know what I have coming up,” she said. “I paint every day. Whatever comes up, I’ll do it until I can’t anymore.”

And all that prize money?

“Probably put it in my piggy bank!”

She and her daughter collapsed into each other, dissolved in laughter.

More: Detroit poet-scholar Melba Joyce Boyd named Kresge Eminent Artist of 2023

Contact Free Press arts and culture reporter Duante Beddingfield at dbeddingfield@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Abstract painter Nora Chapa Mendoza named 2024 Kresge Eminent Artist