Gallery 1 — Alli Arocho

Hello! I’m Alli Arocho, a Puerto Rican visual artist now based in Utah. I paint, sculpt, teach, study Puerto Rican folklore, and make small Vejigante masks. At the moment I’m working on abstract paintings and ceramics. You can follow my journey more closely on Instagram.

Previous work - Bomba Collection

Bomba is a cheerful and powerful Boricua folkloric music. It was created by enslaved African and Indigenous people in the archipelago of Puerto Rico and was a tool for resilience and resistance. Bomba honored traditions old and new, helped remember folks that passed, aided in fights with impossible odds, and also provided fun in community. Today, we play bomba to preserve culture, to protest, to heal, and to celebrate the parts of us that colonization hasn't been able to erase.

Barrilito - The barril is 1 of 3 instruments in traditional Puerto Rican bomba. The barriles buleadores coordinate and play the basic rhythm of the seis de bomba, while the barril primo or subidor improvises and accentuates a dancer’s piquetes (movements).

Loíza - This mask dons the flag of an important and historical coastal town in Puerto Rico. Loíza is cradle of a very unique style of bomba, as well as the home of the coconut vejigante mask.

Cantaore - These phrases are chorus fragments of several bomba songs. The cantaore is the main singer of a bomba. They flourish and improvise verses that tell deeper stories relating to the choruses.

Falda y Enagua - A red bomba skirt in movement, as if in the middle of a piquete. As the skirt moves, a petticoat is shown. Petticoats are an essential part of bomba dancers' dress and were often used as a dancing prop, as a way to show community status, or sewing prowess.

Ancestral - Bomba is Puerto Rican history and ancestry. To learn and participate in a bomba is to remember, honor, and preserve ancestral knowledge.

Higüera - It is the higüera that can become a maraca for bomba, and this instrument is one of the most obvious connections of our Taíno roots in bomba. It informs the time of the music, coordinating the entire community of people who participate in a bomba.

Aislá Collection

Aislá is the phonetic spelling of the word aislada when pronounced with a Puerto Rican accent. Its meaning is to isolate, to metaphorically put something, or someone, on an island.
This work reflects a lifelong physical and emotional isolation from Puerto Rican culture. It is the result of longing to connect with vibrant traditions left behind, while reflecting on the minimization of heritage as a result of colonization. These playful ceramic vejigante masks hold a handful of mundane, yet significant hallmarks of my memories back home.

Moriviví - The name of this plant directly translates to I died/I lived. When you touch its leaves, they close up and hug the stem.

Bahía Bioluminiscente - The most magical place in the world is in Vieques, Puerto Rico, where the perfect environmental conditions cause the water of Moquito Bay to sparkle in the moonlight.

Taína - With golden petroglyph symbols representing water, and the rays of the Jayuya Taíno Sun. This mask carries a version of Puerto Rican heritage (Taíno symbols on an Afro-Caribbean mask).

Other samples of work