Ave 50 Studio

Avenue 50 Studio is an arts presentation organization grounded in Chicana/o and Latina/o culture, visual arts, and the Northeast Los Angeles area. We seek to build bridges of cultural understanding through artistic expressions. We develop programming to inform our community through innovative projects that connect artists, students, academics, and members of the community. Avenue 50 is committed to providing a place where the life and artistic interests of an under-served community can be made visible. Since its founding in 2000, Avenue 50 has grown from a small gallery to an active non-profit arts nexus, and is now an important arts destination venue in the Highland Park neighborhood of Northeast Los Angeles, a traditional arts enclave in the city. We provide a venue for exceptional, up-and-coming local artists and poets. Our monthly art openings and our varied literary events are a testament to the rich diversity that make up Los Angeles. Avenue 50 anchors a site that includes two galleries, a community art space, and three resident artist studios. Our programming includes art exhibitions, art workshops, lectures, poetry and readings, as well as hosting annual events such as Dia de los Muertos. Over the past fifteen years we have organized over 250 exhibits, celebrating a variety of artistic media and themes, and shown nearly 1,000 artists, poets and musicians. We are committed to bridging the diverse cultures of Los Angeles.

Members: Kathy Gallegos, Francisco Fernandez, Lara Medina, Raoul De la Sota, Sybil Venegas, Sergio Teran (guest curator)

Website: http://avenue50studio.org

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FAR Bazaar Project

POST TRUTH AND DECONSTRUCTION

Description: Guest Curated by Sergio Teran. In a political culture that has been described as ‘post truth,’ citizens now struggle to reconcile their places in a world they fear will become a sociol-political, global, and environmental dystopia. With deconstruction comes rebuilding, revaluating and restoration. Resistance starts with voice. Artists exhibiting in the former Printmaking Facilities have been asked to respond to a room that served as a catalyst for voice and catharsis, education, and expression. Artists responded to the ideas of Post Truth and/or Deconstruction.

Location: FA60

Participating Artists: Kathleen Gallegos, Alan Nakagawa, Antonio Perez, Arthur Carillo, Aydinaneth Ortiz, Juan Manuel Valenzuela, Kimo Bautista, Marissa Magdalena Sykes, Peter Hess, Phung Huynh, Rosalie M. López, Rauol De La Sota, Susanna Negrete, C.C. Printmaking Collective, and Sergio Teran.

Kathleen Gallegos is an artist and is the founding Executive Director of Avenue 50 Studio. A Cuban-Puerto Rican-American born in NYC, Ms. Gallegos moved to California during the turbulent 60’s. She became a political activist in the 70-80’s working on a left-wing newspaper in the graphics department. In the 80’s Ms. Gallegos visited Nicaragua to paint a mural; and twice to Cuba for their international art biennials. From 1995 to 1996, Ms. Gallegos lived in Tegucigalpa, Honduras exploring the art of Central America. Her social and cultural activism led to her founding the Avenue 50 Studio in 2000, championing issues of social responsibility. She has been extremely active in representing artists of color both locally and statewide. Currently, Ms. Gallegos sits on the Diversity Committee as a Board Member of the California Arts Council and was named a Local Hero by KCET in 2014.

Alan Nakagawa is an interdisciplinary artist primarily working with sound, occasionally incorporating video, sculpture, drawing, paint and/or performance. Since 2014, he has been working on a semi-autobiographic sound-based environement titled TRIAD, utilizing multi-point audio field recordings of the interiors of the Hiroshima Atomic Dome (Hiroshima, Japan), Wendover Hangar (Utah), Watts Towers (Los Angeles) and the Sagrada Familia (Barcelona, Spain) along with frequencies inspired by seven Southern California earthquakes. Nakagawa is currently the Creative Catalyst Artist in Resident at the Los Angeles Department of Transportation and Artist in Resident at the EchoPark Film Center. In 2016, he completed a mini artist residency at the Getty Villa, Malibu CA. In 2015, he completed a residency at the Smithsonian Museum of American History,where he researched the history of the hearing aid. Nakagawa has a unique background as co-founder of Collage Ensemble Inc. (1984-2011), a pioneering arts collective in public engagement/ inter-ethnic collaborative art projects as well as a two and a half decade career as the Senior Public Arts Officer for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority. He was the curator of the six-year program, Ear Meal Webcast, documenting the Los Angeles experimental music and sound arts community. Nakagawa received training in oral history production at the University of California, Los Angeles. He incorporates this technique when working with communities and institutions, often drawing inspiration from collected stories

Antonio Perez, is a self-taught, Los Angeles based artist working in disciplines of printmaker and ceramics. Antonio has exhibited in a wide range of venues in and around Los Angeles County including, Avenue 50 Studio and Museum of Latin American Art. “Creating has become an Inner necessity, a sense of expression drawn from the energy of the day to day experience.” He was born in Compton Ca. and grew up in Bell Gardens where he currently resides.

Arthur Carillo Is a realist painter who works with acrylics. He's been exhibiting since 2012. Some of the places Art has exhibited include the USC Medical Village Violence Prevention Center, Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery and the Ontario Museum of History and Art to name a few and various art galleries throughout Los Angeles County. His work experience includes creating over 20 12x20 ft. backdrops for Schmidli Backdrops inc, working as an after school art instructor at Temple Elementary in Rosemead CA., and the restoration of artwork in the 7th floor chapel at the Dream Center Los Angeles, Ca. Art is inspired by artists George Bellows, Francisco Goya, Norman Rockwell and William Bliss Baker to name a few. "I try to create artwork that reflects the time I live in. My ultimate goal is to create museum quality work and to hopefully have left something behind that was worth staring at." '

Aydinaneth Ortiz, best known as Aydi (pronounced I.D.) received her B.A. in Art at the University of California, Los Angeles and is currently an MFA Candidate at the California Institute of the Arts. She works in digital and chemical-based photographic processes as well as traditional printmaking mediums such as relief, etching and serigraphy. Utilizing documentary, portrait, and street photography, she focuses on intersections between urban structures, familial relationships, and social contexts. Ortiz has exhibited her artwork in a wide range of venues, most notably at the Pomona College Museum of Art in Claremont and the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) in Long Beach, where she is now part of their permanent collection. In 2016 she had her first Solo Exhibition hosted at Avenue 50 Studio’s Satellite Gallery in Highland Park.

Juan Manuel Valenzuela was born in Whittier, CA. He is a photo based artist who's practice focuses on dealing with Issues of identity, culture and ethnicity that are at odds at the crossroads of being a Mexican American. His work criticizes and redefines opinions by making contrary statements to commonly accepted notions and stereotypes. Valenzuela has exhibited his works throughout Southern California. He lives and works in Whittier, CA.

Kimo Bautista is a self taught artist rooted in graffiti furthering growth through fine arts here at Cerritos College. Predominantly through study focusing in Printmaking and Ceramics. Current work sets out to portray a sence of technological dependency and ultimately a loss of humanity; depicted through caricature influenced by ancestral heiritage and civilizations past. Both his printmaking and ceramic artworks have been featured in the 2016 Cerritos College Student Art Show. Previous to this in 2011-2014, Kimo Bautista had his very first opportunity to showcase his artwork with independent curations by Raul Esparza's Quietgenius and Steve Minty in the Los Angeles area. As of now, Kimo's artworks are currently on exhibition at Avenue 50 Studio in L.A. until Feburary 2017.

Marissa Magdalena Sykes is a Los Angeles based artist who enjoys questioning the norms of physical and social space. Her work inhabits a place between overlapping art forms. Her primary materials are minds, bodies, and other time bound ephemera. Marissa cultivated a dramatic aesthetic amid the dressing racks and theater sets of California’s great San Joaquin Valley where she was born and grew up. Today the juxtaposition of Marissa’s farming community roots and current urban backdrop is a wellspring of inspiration. Marissa is a graduate of Otis College of Art & Design. She has devoted over a decade to teaching others art regionally. Marissa has exhibited extensively in traditional as well as alternative spaces. To this end her work has been shown at Avenue 50 Studios, Self Help Graphics, Juas, 18th Street Art Center, The Bakersfield Museum of Art, Museum of Ventura County, Phantom Galleries, undisclosed locations in Tehran and many others.

Peter Hess has exhibited his work in numerous solo exhibitions, including at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Avenue 50 Studio and Koplin Gallery. Among the many group exhibitions have been shows at the Long Beach Museum of Art, Purdue University, Coagula Curatorial, Laguna Beach Museum of Art and Angel’s Gate Cultural Center. Currently, he is engaged in paintings and prints called “Woodworks.” They depict once-living things, extinguished and pressed into a second life of utilitarian service. Lumber forms in these works create an avenue for constructing compositions, while wood grain provides an opportunity for contained expressionistic gestures. Wood — planks, boards, timbers, etc. — is practically the only element represented. They will be on exhibit in July, 2017 at Coagula Curatorial in Chinatown.

Phung Huynh is a Los Angeles-based artist who works primarily in drawing and painting. She is influenced by 17th century Italian, Baroque painters as well as contemporary artist who explore post-colonial, cross-cultural phenomena. Her work is deliberate exploration of traditional Chinese auspicious imagery, and the ways it is consumed and distorted in American popular culture. The development of Huynh’s art and polemical investigation on things “oriental” are greatly influenced by Edward Said. His Seminal text, Orientalism presents interesting cultural paradox in which “orient at large…vacillates between the West’s contempt for what is familiar and it shivers of delight in or fear of novelty.” (orientalism, 59) Huynh is currently represented by CB-1 Gallery in Los Angeles and has had solo exhibitions at Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills and Sweeney Art Gallery at the University of California Riverside, Her paintings and drawings have been exhibited nationally and internationally in countries such as Germany and Cambodia. She has also completed public art commissions for the Metro Orange Line, Metro Silver Line, and the Los Angeles Zoo. Phung Huynh is Associate Professor of Art at Los Angeles Valley College. She completed undergraduate course work at University of Southern California and received a undergraduate degree from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, and received her Graduate degree from New York University.

Rosalie M. López is a Los Angeles based artist whose artwork uses printmaking, papel-picado, and the altar/offering to relay experiences of survival, loss, and hope. Her artwork draws on her Chicana/Mexican heritage, reforming cultural iconography using images from her family and community. Her content often highlights figures or places to recognize the strength and influence of our communities, while also speaking about cultural and social expressions. Rosalie M. López was raised in Gardena, CA and lived in South Los Angeles during her early adulthood. Her Chicana/Mexican heritage, family, and community experience continue to shape her perspectives on society and culture. In 2013 Rosalie earned her Master of Fine Arts in printmaking from Indiana University and has dual Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees in graphic design and printmaking from California State University, Long beach. In 2016, Rosalie curated and exhibited in the 43 annual Self Help Graphics & Art, Day of the Dead art exhibition and was invited to be a summer artist in residence at the Arikara Native Reservation in White shield, ND. In 2016 Lopez had a solo exhibition at Avenue 50 Studios, in Los Angeles and has been in group exhibitions at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Los Angeles, the Indianapolis Art Center, in Indiana, and the National Hispanic Cultural Center, in Albuquerque, NM. After completing her MFA degree, she worked on a National Endowment for the Arts-Our Town Grant, as the visual art program director at Working Classroom Inc., a youth arts conservatory in Albuquerque, NM. As a graduate student, Lopez received 4 Indiana University research grants to support her development in printmaking and contemporary altar making, attending an artist residency hosted at el Museo Taller de Erastro Cortez, in Puebla, Mexico, and Espacio Zapata in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Rauol De La Sota is Professor Emeritus in Mexican American History at Los Angeles City College. He has exhibited throughout the United States and Mexico and his artwork has been included in exhibitions at the Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach and the UCLA Armand Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. He is the first Chicano artist to be awarded a Fulbright Scholarship

Susanna Negrete Was born in the San Gabriel Valley in 1986. In 2007, she earned her Bachelor’s degree (in Graphic Design) from Cal State L.A. She works primarily in linocuts, where her work highlights her personal relationship and playful understanding of nature. She has exhibited in venues in and around Los Angeles including Avenue 50 Studio, MOLAA and Self-Help Graphics. Her work is in private collections throughout California. She continues to live and work in the San Gabriel Valley.

C.C. Printmaking Collective are students of Cerritos College printmaking students who are current and former who have a connection to the space that served as a platform for knowledge practice network and expression.

Sergio Teran is a Mexican/American artist born and raised in Los Angeles 1974. In 1999, he graduated from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He received a graduate degree in Studio Art from New York University in 2002. Sergio works in the disciplines of painting, printmaking and sculpture. His work has been exhibited nationally in such places as Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Vincent Price Museum, CA. Kiokido Museum of Art, NYC, Nielsen Gallery, MA, The University of Connecticut, Taste like Chicken Art Space Brooklyn NY, The Southwest Museum Of American Indian, CA, and his most recent solo exhibition at Avenue 50 Studio Gallery in Los Angeles, Ca. Sergio is a Professor of Drawing and Printmaking at Cerritos College in Norwalk CA. His studio resides in the corner of the kitchen, much to his wife’s chagrin.