Karla Diaz, Rebozo and Hijab, 2021, watercolor and ink on paper
Writer, teacher, and multidisciplinary artist Karla Diaz’s first solo exhibition, Insomnia, opened September 4 at the contemporary art gallery Luis de Jesus Los Angeles.
Diaz, along with her husband Mario Ybarra Jr. were residents in 2007 with Diaz returning to the LAP in the spring of 2019. The two collaborate on an international art collective entitled Slanguage.
Mario Ybarra Jr. is also featured in the exhibition Undoing Time: Art and Histories of Incarceration at the Arizona State University Art Museum. Joining him are LAP Fellow Paul Rucker, selected in 2019, and past Guest Artist Stephanie Syjuco.
LAP Fellow Gregory Sale will activate the exhibition through public programs created by members of his Future IDs Art and Justice Leadership Cohort.
Heading to Sonoma? Don’t miss: LAP Fellow Kara Maria (2015/16) along with husband Enrique Chagoya at the Sonoma Valley Art Museum in Double Trouble: Enrique Chagoya and Kara Maria, open through January 2, 2022.
Photo: Gabriela Hasbun
Featured in Hyperallergic, Josué Rojas (2009 LAP Fellow) talks about choosing to become a full-time artist in the time of the pandemic, focusing on his mural artwork in San Francisco and using it as a vehicle to center Latino culture and the stories of the community.
On September 8, LAP Fellow Daniel Canogar opened Amalgama Phillips at the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. The installation uses 550 images of artworks from the museum’s permanent collection to create a generative digital artwork that liquefies all the works in a seamless blend of melted imagery, exploring how digital media is shifting our experience and understanding of art.
Amalgama Phillips closes January 2, 2022, but if you aren't headed to D.C. any time soon, you can still see Canogar's work in the Bay Area: visit Aqueous, an interactive work commissioned with the support of the Lucas Artists Program fall 2019, in the public lobby of the Sobrato Foundation at 599 Castro Street in Mountain View.
The California Department of Public Health has started an initiative called Your Actions Save Lives, an outreach campaign featuring 18 original temporary public artworks like performances, a zine, billboard displays—and even t-shirt designs. LAP Fellow Hector Dionicio Mendoza and collaborator Angelica Muro participated in the initiative by designing a series of t-shirts incorporating iconic images from loteria and graphics that look like advertisements commonly seen in Mexican and Central American markets to promote COVID-19 safety precautions messaging aimed at the farmworker community. Mendoza and Muro discuss the impetus behind the project in this video.
You can also see Mendoza's latest installation on Montalvo's grounds, Creando Espacio, now through November 14.
LAP Fellow Willie Perdomo has been named the new State Poet, the New York State Writers Institute announced earlier this week. Perdomo is a prize-winning poet and author who examines and celebrates the Nuyorican and Afro-Latino experience, primarily in his home neighborhood of Spanish Harlem. Perdomo completed The Crazy Bunch during his fellowship at Montalvo.
