Cerritos College SUR:biennial 2011
SUR:biennial > 2011 > Cerritos
Castillo, Cityscape, Photomural on Vinyl 17' by 24', 2011 (photo by Nelson Melo).
Castillo
Castillo was born in Los Angeles to a Colombian immigrant family - her lineage also includes that of Pilipino,African, Spanish, and Indigenous Colombian, which has had a profound influence on her work as an active artist in her community. She enjoys the exploration of materials and their identity. The definition, purpose, and typical perception of materials inform her work. Presenting materials in a new way that embodies layers of meaning - while not denying their identity – remains a source of fascination for Jane. Her latest work has shifted to the commentary of the history of capitalism and the role it has played in her lineage, specifically the sugar trade in Colombia. More of a tongue in cheek approach, with all the honesty perceived and misperceived as she addresses being a product of it, in more ways than one.
Castillo earned a B.A. from California State University, Fullerton and an M.F.A. from Claremont Graduate University. She has recently exhibited locally at the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, California African American Museum, Ontario Museum of History and Art, and MACLA in San Jose. In 2009, she received the City of Los Angeles (C.O.L.A.) Fellowship as well as the Visions from the New California Award.
Karla Diaz, Hip Hop Opera Imaginary: Bucket Brigade part 1, Multi-media Installation,
2011.
Karla Diaz
Karla Diaz and Mario Ybarra, Jr. are the Co-Founders of Slanguage. Slanguage is an artist group headquartered in Wilmington, California, a harbor area of Los Angeles. Currently, members make artwork, curate exhibitions, coordinate events, and lead art-education workshops. A diverse group at various points in their careers, Slanguage includes teenagers, street artists, and established mid – to late career artists, the majority of whom live and work in the greater Los Angeles area, especially Wilmington.
Gustavo Godoy, Empty Idol (From Empty Idols & Empty Alters Series), Wood and Metal,
8' x 15' x 4', 2011.
Gustavo Godoy
Gustavo Godoy was born in Ontario, California in 1974.Godoy received his B.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and studied architecture and urban design at the University of California, Los Angeles, before earning his M.F.A. from Vermont College of Fine Art in Montpelier, Vermont. He is currently represented by Honor Fraser Gallery. His work is a series of personal constructions: constructions of form, experience, language, systems, and spaces. These constructions expand on simple real world ideas, in ways that reactivate and complicate the familiar and invite participation and discussion in artistic and academic discourse, as well as with the larger public.
In much of his work, he exercise fast-paced, organic construction strategies in interactive pieces that become shaped and expanded by the audience through physical exploration and the artwork’s activation components(i.e. sound, light, ramps). he works toward complicating some of the pragmatic expectations of a material, in favor of a delicate balancing of problem-solving, formal considerations, and everyday, real-world interaction. He is interested in the potential coming to life of these works, placing the viewer in dynamic participatory situations (conceptually and physically) within the activation of the artwork.
It is his hope to construct, challenge, and liberate ideas of art-viewing and art-making, with work that carefully acknowledges the context in which it operates, both in time and place, and specifically speaks to the role of the viewer as activist and audience, in the art space context and within the world at large.
Elana Mann, Rise up Singing, Two Channel Video Installation, 2011.
Elana Mann
Elana Mann is an artist based in Los Angeles. Mann’s projects investigate struggles in communication and control within interpersonal, social, and political contexts. Her artwork probes the nature of exchange through a variety of mediums including performance, video and installation in addition to larger discursive and collaborative projects. She has presented work nationally and internationally. She was a recipient of California Community Foundation’s 2009 Visual Arts Fellowship and has published five books.
In her most recent video an Egyptian man climbs a hilltop in Los Angeles and sings the song Die Gedanken Sind Frei (Our Thoughts are Free) in Arabic. This song has been sung in freedom protests all over the world since the 1500’s. In the background of the video you can hear the sounds of Los Angeles: helicopters, cars passing, children playing. This video is played as a loop in the gallery so that the man infinitely ascends and descends the hill.
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