Four Latine Artists Creating a Personal Portrait of Las Vegas

I met Krystal Ramirez more than a decade ago, when she was a photographer at Vegas Seven, and I was its editor. Since then, I have admired her work both up close and from afar as her practice spans photography, sculpture, text, and large-scale public art. Haide Calle and geo Uranda are former students of Ramirez, while Dan45 Hernandez is part of the same deeply connected local arts community. Together, these four artists are creating a more personal record of Las Vegas — one shaped by identity, family, labor, memory, and the people whose stories have too often remained outside the frame.

Krystal Ramirez

Krystal Ramirez’s work examines what she describes as the “consumption of the brown body.” Her work makes hidden labor and construction processes visible while drawing on her family history and experience as a second-generation immigrant from working-class Las Vegas. Her permanent sculpture, "The Night We Met", unveiled at the Las Vegas Civic Center in January, brings those ideas into public space. Curved walls incorporate hand-poured concrete breezeblocks inspired by the Sarno Block at Caesars Palace, while neon lighting gives the structure a familiar Las Vegas glow. The title comes from The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby.”

Haide Calle

Haide Calle combines fabric, ceramics, and found materials to create mixed-media works. The Las Vegas artist, ceramicist, and social activist often uses inviting colors and tactile materials to approach more complicated questions about identity and social expectations. This fall, Calle is turning her attention to other artists as guest curator of "Somos Magia (We Are Magic)" at Las Vegas City Hall. The group exhibition considers fantasy, storytelling, and symbolism as ways to explore belonging and imagine different worlds.

Dan45 Hernandez

A Pez dispenser, cassette tape, or plastic toy can seem disposable until it becomes the object that reminds you exactly who you were when you acquired it. Dan45 Hernandez references inexpensive pop-culture artifacts to create sculptures and installations about memory, consumerism, assimilation, and displacement. Raised in a military family that moved frequently, Hernandez found continuity in portable objects rather than places. He also created the SOCIAL COMA zine and is a core member of the street-art collective Cult 33.

Geovany “geo” Uranda

Geovany “geo” Uranda works across muralism, sculpture, design, performance, and curating, often returning to Chicane identity and their upbringing in East Las Vegas. Uranda created "Nuestras Máscaras", a public mural at the East Las Vegas Community Center depicting colorful figures. They also illustrated "The ABCs of Latinidad Coloring Book" for the Las Vegas-born podcast "Latinos Who Lunch." Uranda currently works in Justin Favela’s studio and belongs to the grassroots collective scrambled eggs, which has presented 22 exhibitions while working to build what the group calls “artistic permanence” in Nevada.