Saturday, April 18, 2009

BINATIONAL SYMPOSIUM/ART SHOW: THE DREAM ACT IN CONTEXT

Flier designed by Bernardo Olmedo

SDSU IMPERIAL VALLEY CAMPUS FACULTY-STUDENT MENTOR PROGRAM,
FACULTY COUNCIL,
UNIVERSIDAD AUTONOMA DE BAJA CALIFORNIA,
AND CAL STATE SAN MARCOS
BRING A
Binational Symposium/Art Show
“Immigration, Education and Militarization: The DREAM Act in Context”
April 30, 2009: Cultural Event 7pm-9pm
Rodney Auditorium, SDSU-IV Campus
May 1, 2009: Symposium 8am-8pm
Rodney Auditorium, SDSU-IV Campus
April 24 Opening Reception 4-8pm
Steppling Gallery, SDSU-IV Campus
May 1, 2009 Closing Reception 4-8pm
Gallery open April 27-April 30 6-8pm


Location: SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY
IMPERIAL VALLEY CAMPUS
720 Heber Ave., Calexico, CA 92231

BINATIONAL ART SHOW: IMMIGRATION, BORDERS AND IDENTITY

Steppling Gallery, SDSU-IV Campus

Featuring works by artists from Los Angeles, San Fransisco, Arizona, Imperial Valley and Mexicali, MX.

Participating Artists

Pablo Castañeda
Manuel Cruz
Jennifer Cuellar
Manuel Cuen
Jorge Estrada
Emmanuel Ferraes
Mayra Garcia
Tom Gilbertson
Elisa Guerrero G.
Robi Guillen
Fred Guzman
Minerva Torres-Guzman
Carol Hegarty
Juan Hernandez
Stephanie Marin-Lepe
Elizabeth M Lopez
Bernardo Olmedo
Miguel Ayala Priego
Juan Quintero
Irene Sanchez
Eddie Shiffer
Nancy Trujillo
Ramon Garcia Vasquez
Angelica Villaseñor

Bi-national Art Show: Immigration, Borders and Identity
The border and immigration is an issue that does not seem to directly affect the lives of many Americans in an immediate significant way. They may picture illegal immigrants from the evening news. At most, maybe they felt uncomfortable making eye contact with the day laborers that wait for work at the Home Depot in places outside the Imperial Valley. Those day laborers are from another place, another culture and that place and culture only affects most people in the United States peripherally. The only borders many Americans experience in their day to day lives are based on differences in culture and social class.
This exhibition features artworks by artists from both sides of the international American/Mexican border. The border is a real tangible thing that has shaped aspects of everyday life for many if not all of the artists showing. A unique culture has developed along the border and the artists presenting and their artworks are products of that unique culture.
In conjunction with the Dream Act symposium this exhibition aims to create a dialogue about the realities of people for whom the border directly affects in a real significant way.

Fred Guzman

Art Work


Nancy Trujillo
"Boundary"
Photo
2007
Borders
Invented to mark the beginning or the end of the territory? To keep
people in or out of the area? How effective are they? It depends on
what you want the out come to be. The perspectives vary when you stand
on opposite sides of the fence.



Pablo Castañeda
"Nocturno 3: Anochecer el Muro"
85x85 cm
Acrylic on Canvas
2007

His painting represents the shadow of border what it relates his expressions of ideas. As well known and imagined in the wall frontier.

His allegory shows the scene domestic and the confusion on the border between our countries. There are the highway, the dessert, the custom and the tunnel. There is a stop sign because it´s very common. A wall exists on controversy. The freeway and some personages images unknown on the wall.

The Dante portrait picture mounts on the wall add some classic literary to the contemporary art piece.





Manuel Cruz
Digital Print
"Free McDonalds"
8in x 10in
Photoshop Illustrator
2009
I remember crossing the border with my family to go just to eat at mcdonalds and the people I see in mexico go to just buy hamburgers cause its better than in mex. as I grew up I moved to Gilroy and started working in a processing plant and most of the workers were illegals and had two jobs to get by and most of them worked at mcdonalds, what brought my attention was that they were treated and discriminated by their peers who too were illegals so in the piece I show how ronald has the door open to cross into the usa, and like most people that cross they are going naked with nothing and how in my opinion the goverment lets people cross the border to work in the us every once in a while when workers are needed to do low paying jobs.



Jennifer Cuellar
"Coyote (Canis Latrans)"
16"x 20"
Graphite on Paper
2009
I wanted to create a piece based on the idea of the "coyote," a smuggler of illegal immigrants from Mexico who is paid to guide said immigrants into the United States. I remember hearing about coyotes when I was around thirteen years old, and ever since then I've been fascinated with the anonymous aspect of the idea: who are these coyotes? What do they look like? This is my attempt to visually interpret what a coyote looks like: a belt-buckle-black-leather-boot-western-shirt-wearing-cigarette-smoker with no face.


Manuel Cuen
"Dreams in Red"
24"x 36"
Acrylic on Masonite
2008
The US-Mexico border is policed and the effects of economic and racial discrimination on Mexican immigrants. La muerte en la Frontera. Sueños en rojo. Muerte y Sol.


Jorge Estrada
"A Shoe Under My Foot"
2009
Born in Mexico and coming to United states as an migrant worker it made me to do my art work related to my past. I started working in the fields when I was seventeen years old since that time I saw the the migrant field workers were threaten as a slaves specially by their own people as the foremen and supervisors. Most supervisors are ass kissers of their boss and they try to please their boss doesn't matter if they hurt the workers. Most of the foremen are ass holes that want to please the supervisors and so on. In my work about field workers you can see how hard they work. You can see in this piece the lettuce cutters, packers, loaders and the workers that close the boxes with the stapler gun. Does not matter whether or distance they follow the harvest season letting their families alone while they move to other cities or towns.


Emmanuel Ferraes
"Boundaries"
22" x 15"
Mixed Media
2009
For me the world is a place where surreal and ridiculous events happen all the time in real life. I deal with this madness by reordering it into a language that makes sense for me. While war, drought, and other awful things happen I feel that as an artist in this time it would be irresponsible not to paint and draw about issues that do matter.


Mayra Garcia
"Sketch #1: Papel Picado"
22" x 28"
Mixed Media
2009
I've lived in Brawley for most of my life and have always been in and out of Mexicali and Tijuana. Until recently, I had never thought of the border as the "Border" since it has always been a constant in my life. Almost all of my family has been rooted in Mexico at one point or another. This is a sketch page, a view into my perspective of my family's history and mine, and how it interweaves with immigration; the "border" as a physical and emotional thing.


Elisa Guerrero
"Un Largo Trayecto"
30" x 22"
Acrylic on Paper
2009
Es siempre un trayecto largo y complicado que conduce a un aparente paraiso. Individuos jovenes o viejos, fuertes o lisiados en el intento, esperanzados o desilusionados tratan de llegar una y otra vez a ese lugar de bienestar imaginado. Como quien asciende por una escalera, asi la gente sube por grandes barreras mirando hacia arriba, esperando llegar un dia al ansiado destino. No importa el riesgo y el dolor, el objetivo es terminar el trayecto que los conducira hacia una especie de cielo dentro de un infierno que los rodea y tantas veces los consume.


Stephanie Marin-Lepe
"Esperanza"
16" x 20"
Oil on Canvas
2009
El Canal Todo Americano representa la ESPERANZA de realizar el sueño Americano para todos los que tratan de cruzarlo, pero no todos pueden ya que tristemente muchos quedan en el intento.
The All American Canal represents hope for many immigrants who want to reach the American dream trying to go across it, but sadly many people that attempt to cross it do not make it.


Miguel Ayala Priego
"Mr. Rotchild dijo: Cuando las calles se llenen de sangre compra propiedades a 5 centavos"
12" x 9"
Acrylic on Paper
2009
La obra trata de la manipulación de los grupos de elite de poder mundial que utilizando el método Maquiavelo de que el fin justifica los medios , por lo tanto atravez del miedo y la muerte,se abaratan los territorios debido al terror para después comprar y apropiarse del territorio y después subir el valor de las mismas. y las consecuencias es que el la mayor parte del planeta es tercermundista. en conclusión la obra es de tendencia nihilista y niega todo idealismo o utopía ,habla de la supervivencia del mas fuerte y la muerte de los mas débiles, del darwinismo social como una realidad, de las razas dominantes y evolucionadas, del imperialismo desde Roma ,España, Inglaterra hasta los imperios actuales, con el pensamiento de que en la civilización siempre habrá un imperio ,siempre será la supremacía del mas apto. esa es la parte obscura de la naturaleza humanas y como dice Federico Nieztche : lo que mueve al mundo es la voluntad de poder”.


Irene Sanchez
"Soñe del Campo"
10" x 10"
Color Photo
2003
Gabriel Sanchez was an immigrant, a farm laborer and my father. He taught me the value of hard work; it was what he knew since childhood and continued to do until his illness. Retired and ill, my father always looked back at those days in the field with high hopes of one day returning. This image is a piece from a series dedicated to a dream he once shared with me - a dream in which he found himself driving his tractor as he had done for over 40 years.





Ramon Garcia Vasquez
De la Serie "Los No Identificados del Desierto I y II"
Paper Mache and acrylic paint
2008
Díptico de mascaras de cráneos basados en miles de migrantes no identificados que un día salieron de su lugar de origen para lograr traspasar la frontera y tras cruzar se enfrentan con la muerte originada por diostintos factores como la violencia, el hambre o la sed , y tras su muerte son olvidados a lo largo del camino del peligroso desierto.

Angelica Villaseñor
“Metamorfosis Humana”
“Human Metamorphosis
Metallic Acrylics on canvas
30" x 34"
I write and paint to channel all my emotions and frustrations positively. My paintings bring forth my honest and pure emotions; the ones that reflect the strength, and worthiness of a new generations of women.
Minerva Torres-Guzman
"Mi Niñez"
(My Childhood
)
10in x 8in
Print from Original
(graphite on paper)
2007
My childhood consisted of constantly going from one world to another. When I was in Mexico, the U.S. was always called the "other" side and vice versa. I was never on the "other" side when it came down to it. Somehow, I kept missing it! No matter what side of the border I was on, the Saturday morning cartoons were the same. Most blockbuster movies and popular cartoons were in Spanish, my native tongue. My work deals with the blending of ideas and memories that growing up on both sides of the border has provided for me. I can talk about a Mexican comedy show to my friends here in California and they most likely know what I am talking about. I can cross the border to Mexico and see images of Thundercats and Smurfs. At a young age, the only difference in the products I bought would be the type of currency used to purchase them. Everything blended in my mind and the only physical separation was waiting an hour to cross the border back into the United States.


Robi Guillen
"Reflective Desertion"
18" x 24"
Oil on Canvas
With "the grass is always greener" mentality, whoever

"they" are "they" cross the border. With expectations, hopes, dreams, aspirations.

Some make it, some don't, some will some won't. Coming from a place of majestic

simplicity and profound beauty in an instance being reverted to the negative

stereotypical figures in another. They look back on what was, with no "real" sense of

the greatness they are descended from.



Fred Guzman
8" x 10"
Collage



Carol Hegarty
"Never Far From Big Brother"
48" x 36"
Oil on Canvas
Helicopters buzz over my house at all hours so close the walls shake like an earthquake. So when I was visiting tidepools, with no one in sight for miles, and looked up to see this winged spy, I was inspired to paint the scene.


Bernardo Olmedo
"Border Ghosts"
"Fantasmas de la Frontera"
22.5 x 20 cm
2007
Con mi pieza "Fantasmas de la frontera" represento algunos de los miedos, traumas y muertes generados al cruzar ilegalmente la frontera. Estos fantasmas ahora viven atrapados en los dos lados del cerco.
With my art piece "Border ghosts" I represent some of the fears, trauma and deaths generated by illegal border crossing. These ghosts now live trapped in both sides of the fence.


Elizabeth M Lopez
Of the Series "Its a Small World After All"
"The MexiCAN"
9" x 12"
2009
In my work I often use visual satire as well as humor to address issues that are important to me as an artist/person. In this piece I use the abstracted caricature-like "sombrero" as a stand in for Mexicans in the US. The used Coca Cola can represents not only mainstream American culture but it also creates a living space for these sombreros.






Tom Gilbertson
Untitled
20in x 24in
Mixed media encaustic on wood
2009
My first conscious encounter with "illegal" aliens
was on my way to San Diego. In the mountains near
Jacumba I saw several men trotting along the highway.
As I got closer they scattered and tried to run up the bank.
In their panic some of the men stumbled and slid down the
dirt escarpment. I felt ashamed and embarrassed. Later
I realized that, to them, in my white Explorer I appeared
to be la migra. On the way home I bought bottled water
and left it behind the railing near the place where
I had seen the men.
Mi primer encuentro consciente con extranjeros ilegales estaba en camino a San Diego. En las montañas cerca de Jacumba vi varios hombres trotando a lo largo de la carretera. Al acercarme ellos se percataron de mi presencia y trataron de huir. En su pánico uno de los hombres tropezó y resbaló por la escarpe de la suciedad. Sentí pena y vergüenza. Mas tarde, me di cuenta de que, para ellos, en mi Explorer blanca you parecia la migra. En el camino de regreso compre agua embotellada y la deje detrás de la barandilla cerca del lugar donde yo había visto a los hombres.



Juan Hernandez
La Espera
20in x 24in
Acrylic on Canvas
2008
Representa el dia de paga de la jornada en el campo a mediados del siglo XX, esta pintura pertenece a una coleccion mayor hecha para narrar la colonizacion del valle de mexicali e imperial; Tierra Nuestra se titula, sirvio para ilustrar un libro de cuentos de la historia de Mexicali en el 2008 y este proyecto fue becado por el estado de Baja California en el 2007, asi como que se a presentado en comunidades rurales y el CEARt de Mexicali y el CAC de Calexico.
Los colores calidos representan la caida de la tarde y lo inclemente del clima.



Eddie Shiffer
Untitled
18in x 24in
Mixed Media
2009
Eddie Shiffer is currently attending the Academy of Artist University in San Fransisco in the hopes that some day he will receive his MFA in the field of painting. He also hates writing in the third person because he believes its ridiculous. That being said he will now go and make himself some food and he will enjoy it. He also hopes that you will enjoy his art work.



Juan Quintero
A Dos de Tres Caidas
19.5in x 13.5in
Installation
2009
In this piece I used a wooden structure(found object) resembling the existing fence and a typical regional toy(luchador) painted as "Santo" the most iconic Mexican fighter.Santo representing thousands of fighters is ready to jump the fence and as the title says,he has two out of three chances(falls)

Photo Gallery




Left to Right: Minerva Torres-Guzman, Fred Guzman, Elizabeth Lopez, Jorge Estrada
Show Coordinators
Bernardo Olmedo was missing