“I crossed the border without papers, but in high heels:” The Spanish title of de la Torre’s solo exhibition starts with an “I” that is spoken by the artist’s mother. “How we came to the United States” is both mythical lore and a real story that is passed down through the generations of immigrants.

The drawing that dominates the exhibition comes out of this narrative. Teresita de la Torre drew a red platform wedge sandal that her mother described to her as she narrated how she wanted to look feminine and attractive before meeting her husband on “the other side.”

The actual shoes have fallen apart long ago, so the artfully “naif” line drawing becomes the diagrammatic method to describe that sandal and show its different parts, without explaining its significance. There is a plan drawing in red pencil of the shoe sole with four intersecting red straps, and an elevation view of the ankle strap and clasp (magnified as a detail) as well as a wedge heel drawn separately.

As if to instruct a shoe maker or to mimic forensic sketch artists who draw from the words of a witness, the drawing also contains hand-written linguistic descriptions-instructions in Spanish: “This is where it attaches” or “four straps, 1, 2, 3, 4.”

Through its form, the drawing also performsa transmission of memory and history, an attempt to condense identity into a singular artwork, a monument to an apparently insignificant object.