Cris Escobar – Conjunto
“My artwork can be identified or described as the barrio genre with a universal twist to it. I am traditional in all that I do as a Chicano visual artist. In my drawings and paintings, I address and capture the essence of rich bold color, and the sabor of the barrio. Most of my art concepts revolve around my life experiences and just about everything that I see around me every day!”
Cruz Ortiz – Mi Terco Corazón Nunca Aprender
Cruz Ortiz is an American Contemporary Artist who uses multiple mediums examining connections to nature, hope, healing, beauty, endurance, and the cosmos. He uses bold graphic screen prints, figurative abstract portraiture, dream-like landscape paintings, temporal guerrilla installations, utilitarian machines, hand carved wood sculptures, large scale public art, video, and performance art.
Carmen Lomas Garza – Sandía/Watermelon
“The Chicano Movement of the late 1960’s inspired the dedication of my creativity to the depiction of special and everyday events in the lives of Mexican Americans based on my memories and experiences in South Texas. I saw the need to create images that would elicit recognition and appreciation among Mexican Americans, both adults and children, while at the same time serve as a source of education for others not familiar with our culture”.
Kathy Vargas – Corazón de Luto
Kathy is an American artist who creates photographs from multiple exposures that she hand colors. She often devotes several works to a particular theme, creating series. Vargas was born in San Antonio, Texas. She was influenced early on by her Catholic faith, her grandmother's ghost stories and her father's retelling of pre-Columbian history. Kathy Vargas worked for many years as the Visual Arts Director of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio and has lectured throughout the United States and Mexico.
Ana Fernandez – Flight
Ana is a San Antonio-based painter who paints in the realist tradition and attempts to capture the cultural, psychological, and spiritual nuances found in seemingly ordinary urban landscapes, particularly those found in Latino and Hispanic communities.
César Martinez – Bato Verde
“I am not a natural-born technically gifted artist and was never a child prodigy who did wondrous artwork. Things I have taken on in my life have been with a “….I think I can do that” attitude. The strength in my art has always been the ideas behind it; everything else is hard work and to this day I struggle. And it has helped being obsessive about my pursuits.”
Jacinto Guevara – Harriett y Ricardo Cenando
Jacinto endeavors to locate and capture unique views. The aim for him is to find the icon before it becomes iconic. Unremarkable scenes that are bypassed are what Jacinto searches for. Scenes interpreted figuratively but in slightly skewed perspective and exarggerated color and often with an aspect of foreboding.
Carmen Lomas Garza – Baile en 1958
“The Chicano Movement of the late 1960’s inspired the dedication of my creativity to the depiction of special and everyday events in the lives of Mexican Americans based on my memories and experiences in South Texas. I saw the need to create images that would elicit recognition and appreciation among Mexican Americans, both adults and children, while at the same time serve as a source of education for others not familiar with our culture”.
Luis Jimenez – Sketch of Blue Mustang
His art elicits strong feelings, debate and controversy and is unflinchingly imbedded in the passionate issues of our modern world. A unique fusion of “Chicano” and Anglo-American worlds, Jimenez is an unorthodox Pop artist with humanistic concerns. He achieves his view by utilizing undiluted vibrant colors (a legacy from his work in his father’s neon sign company and the Mexican muralist influence) and fiberglass (the technology of the North).
Rolando Briseño - Heart Tablescape
Considering San Antonio to be the most truly Mexican city in the United States, Briseño has committed long-term to raising awareness about San Antonio’s Mexican heritage, and to push the art world to be more inclusive of Latino artists. Although his art is often politically charged, Briseño’s interests lie in the scientific and philosophical realms, as his attacks on social injustice are usually veiled in imagery that explores our relationships to one another and to the cosmos.
