Expression through the arts

Cornelio Campos was born in Michoacan, Mexico in 1971 to a working-class family. Cornelio had nine siblings. Cornelio liked painting since he was a child. He was lucky to be take free art classes with a local painter in his little home town of Cheran. He then became his assistant and started travelling with him all around the state of Michoacan carrying his supplies. Cornelio had family who lived in Los Angeles and every Christmas they would visit Cheran and bring Cornelio art supplies.

In 1989, Cornelio left his hometown of Cheran at age 18, right after finishing high school. Cornelio remembers packing his luggage and one of his friends who had been in the USA started laughing because Cornelio was not only packing a giant suitcase as if he were going on a holiday but he was also packing ten large canvasses. How are you going cross the desert like that? Thankfully, his grandparents who were citizens and lived in Los Angeles, moved his things in a truck while Cornelio crossed with a small suitcase.

He lived with his grandparents and very few responsibilities other than painting and small jobs. In 1993 Cornelio’s cousin who was picking tobacco in rural North Carolina invited him to work in the fields. Cornelio left Los Angeles and his paintings behind.

After one year, his cousin had a fight with the grower and returned to Mexico, so he dropped Cornelio off in Durham with another cousin who was working in landscaping. They lived pretty much homeless, from couch to couch in different apartments.  Like most recent arrivals Cornelio spent some time in the Maldita Vecindad (Colonial Apartments).

In 1994 Cornelio started taking ESL classes at Durham Tech.  Cornelio learned English, got married and had a son, Tristan. With new responsibilities, he became a US Citizen and an electrician.

In 2002, after his divorce, Cornelio started painting again, this time with a new consciousness of the fullness of the immigrant experience.