Jeffrey Miranda was born in 1981 at the border of El Paso/Ciudad Juarez. A grandchild of a Mexican peasant family that migrated to the Southwest Rio Grande Valleys of the U.S. during the Bracero Programs in the 1960s. Miranda grew up as a 2nd generation Chicano excelling in art and world history. He holds a BA in drawing with a minor in Biological Sciences from the University of Texas at El Paso. In 2004, Miranda studied Medical Illustration at Southwestern Medical School, Dallas TX. before obtaining an MFA in Art and Technology from the University of Texas at Dallas. His work has been included in numerous collections and group exhibitions primarily in the Southwest. He is an artist/educator who teaches art full time and figure drawing at the University of Texas at Dallas Visual and Performing Arts Program.
Miranda’s artwork rises to show a critical view of social, political, and cultural issues on the border between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez. As a native of the borderland region, Miranda’s artwork explicitly sets out to codify current events affecting its people engaging subjects as diverse as the immigration movement, the immigration workforce, and the ‘drug war’.
Miranda has established a graphic vocabulary he has developed into descriptive illustrations whose themes are combined into visual mural-like installations that often feature mundane cultural, domestic memorable’, cultural icons, and historical references. These are most often juxtaposed with whimsical objects, fantastical inventions often synchronized in a mannered repetition layered into collage-like compositional narratives.
Prints by Jeffrey Miranda
