In "Poetry, Music, and Identity", Afro-Latinx artist Lucia Hierro combines the mixed media of various images such as a drum, album covers, and historical paintings depicting a community making music to build the titular trinity that expresses how art is used to construct identity. Each of the images from Hierro's piece serves as a signifier for her own Afro-Latinx Dominican American identity.

​

The inclusion of both contemporary and historical cultural signifiers in Hierro's piece is not uncommon for Afro-Latinx artists. Jean-Michel Basquiat, a Haitian/Puerto Rican-American artist, often used art to express a distinct conflict between differences; this often included commentary on poverty, integration versus segregations, and his own Afro-Latinx identity as a fusion. However, despite afrolatinidad being communicated through his artwork, there is still a lack of recognition for Afro-Latinx art due to the contested boundaries of what makes it an exclusively Latinx expression or an exclusively Black expression.

​

Afro-Latinx artists often face the challenge of expressing a uniquely constructed identity through their art forms. Incorporating visual signifiers to communicate afrolatinidad are often highly personalized by the experiences of the individual making the piece. Similar to Hierro, Afro-Latinx Mexican artist Clotilde Jiménez makes collages using signifiers of his own constructed experience of afrolatinidad to communicate the nuances of being a Black, Queer, Afro-Latino.

​

Art is a crucial channel for the construction and communication of Afro-Latinx identity because it provides priceless insight into how the experiences of individuals contribute to the larger formation of afrolatinidad and highlights the importance of visual symbols in building identity.

​

​

​

​

​