Against the sage green walls of the gallery, Abby Mendoza’s paintings pop out — literally. A closer look at the collection of paintings reveals netting, tarp, to-do lists, beads and screen protectors.  

Mendoza, an art therapist and artist, says they frequently draw on “immigrant maximalism” in their work by incorporating everyday objects they have saved, a parallel to the habit of immigrant households to collect seemingly random objects in the hopes of one day using them. 

Their care in saving and reusing is on display in the Come as You Are: On Care, For Ourselves and Each Other exhibit, which was on display from March 21 to May 3 at the Epiphany Center for the Arts in Chicago’s West Loop. 

Mendoza, along with contributing artists Ash Nañoz and Michael Baja Anderson, curated the collection. It included pieces made from textiles, fibers and oil on canvas and encouraged viewers to reflect on collective care. 

In one artwork, Anderson pulls images from his mother’s photo archive and recreates them with yarn. “Pieces of You” (2023) includes 8,547 pieces of yarn, a “long” and “meditative” process. Anderson says it is important to recognize the labor that goes into his work. The technique, called latch hooking, requires pulling individual strands of yarn and latching them through holes in a canvas grid.

Aside from acting as a “love letter” to his mom, the fibers that the artwork uses is a metaphor for people’s interactions and connections with one another. For Anderson, collective care is knowing how you can be of help and where you need help from your community.

“Being in the show with two of my dear friends has been just such a delightful expression of that for us,” he says.

Mendoza explores collective care through their work with youth and creating community-informed art projects. They received their master’s in art therapy from School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2023. Their practice aims to support “BIPOC, queer identities, marginalized identities,” which they say are often neglected in mental healthcare.

“The community aspect to it is centering those experiences that aren’t always thought about in research,” Mendoza says, emphasizing cultural intuition in their art workshops. 

For example, they collaborated last summer with Project: Vision, a nonprofit organization that provides youth in Chinatown and Bridgeport with after-school programs and enrichment. Mendoza developed a curriculum about food deserts and accessibility in the Chinatown area and worked with 60 high school students to each create an art project. Students chose to either make a children’s book, a mosaic mural or a pantry box.

Continuing the theme of care, Nañoz explored the idea of fragility and described their pieces in the 

collection as an “introspection” into their relationship with themself and other  people. They recall a sleepover in sixth grade when some girls called her “oversensitive.” While they used to be embarrassed by it, Nañoz says they have since embraced their capacity to care for people, a strength that ties in with the theme of the collection.

In one piece, titled “Oversensitive” (2025), they use parts of a wedding dress from a friend’s sister to create a swan cradled in a seashell-like structure, inspired by their own emotional vulnerability.

“I’m open to being so vulnerable with a lot of people, and I think that’s something I pride myself in because I love to connect with people,” Nañoz says. “I think it’s really special.”

Similarly, Mendoza’s paintings often reflect their own lived experiences. Most pieces feature moments from their own childhood and strive to evoke nostalgia. For instance, “we can’t end on a loss” (2025) comes from their experience playing video games with their brother.

All three say they feel gratitude for the community they found within each other during the process of finalizing the exhibit, especially when another artist dropped out of the show. 

“I’m super proud,” Mendoza says. “I think the word that came out of it after opening night was that I felt loved. And, you know, that was the point of the exhibit.”