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Happy New Year! And with it comes the long awaited spread of tarot cards, specially by millennials interested in tracking popular culture in search of values, mysteries, and riddles that will make them feel real and spiritual in the context of their virtual technology culture. From a very young age I have studied tarot, ritual and magic as tools to enter the subconscious mind and rescue that side of things that we label as weird and absurd. If we add to this my interest in the popular culture that makes up my hybrid identity, we’ll have the essential ingredients to generate an art project that talks about the intersections between global new age culture, urban space and collective neurosis. Back in 2008, during my art residency at Millay Colony for the Arts in NY, I immersed myself fully in the tarot culture, designing my own cards that I called The Tarot of the Labyrinth. Most recently and after studying tarot for several months with artist/psychologist Victor Brossa and his Syneidesis Method, I rescued an old role of me as a tarot reader, almost like an alter ego, and the relationship it holds with my identity as conceptual and performance artist. Since then I never go anywhere without my tarot cards, which more than predict they inquire, and encourage audience co-creation in a playful way. 2018 marked an important moment of transition as an artist: the 15th anniversary since I arrived in San Francisco at the end of 2003. 15 years of projects where San Francisco, its odd stories, its diverse inhabitants and its complex psyche, has been my inspiration. Along the way installations, performance, guerrilla street intervention and great collaborators. I look forward to more years of creativity where values such as community, urban space and playful approach continue to drive my art practice. 
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Fall is starting with a new project, a large scale mural at John Yehall Chin Elementary, in the heart of North Beach in San Francisco. Part of the process of creating the mural was orchestrating the collaboration with the entire school, almost 300 K-5 students, director and teachers. Incorporating the school’s mission, based in Coach Woods Pyramid of Success, I prepared a series of games and exercises for the kids to learn how to use their bodies to express some of the values featured in the pyramid, like friendship, enthusiasm, collaboration, etc. I also introduced the kids to artist Keith Haring's work, street art and traditional mural painting techniques. The final mural consisted of the students bodies outlines transferred onto the wall, creating an intricate web of bodies. The lines and colors emphasized our personal and shared emotions and values. This project is part of my art residency with Leap Arts in Education. I was honored to be invited to create a site-specific installation for the entrance of stARTup Art Fair at Hotel del Sol. During three days, the Hotel gets transformed into a pop-up venue featuring independent artists, non-profit art organizations, art panels, etc. As part of Special Projects, I transformed the sidewalk and entryway of the hotel into an inviting environment, creating a path that leads the public from the street to the hotel courtyard. Using recycled hotel carpets I designed a repetitive pattern that extends from the floor to the wall evoking an arabesque motive. On it's fourth year, stARTup has become a destination event, attracting artists, art industry leaders, and art collectors from across the U.S. and beyond. Learn more about stARTup Art Fair here PORTALE Kalmanovitz Hall Atrium and Rooftop Sculpture Terrace University of San Francisco February 5 - March 25, 2018 Open weekdays, 9am - 5pm In Portale, I used two distinct patterns cut from gaudy, repurposed carpets from hotels and casinos to form a path through the portal. At the entrance, the design references tiles from a basilica in Northern Italy where the portal originated. The pattern on the other side draws from the ceiling of San Francisco’s Mission Dolores Basilica featuring an indigenous design painted by the Ohlone people who were imprisoned at the mission. Using gaudy reclaimed carpets from hotels and casinos, I evoke with irony the relationship between the sacred and the profane. In Portale, I explore ideas of passage and transformation through a site-specific installation that creates a path through the stone portal in Kalmanovitz Hall’s Giraulo Atrium to the Nomadic Labyrinth on the building’s rooftop sculpture terrace. Dated 1175-1200, the Romanesque portal featuring Adam and Eve and the Tree of Knowledge was originally from the Chapel of the Penitents in Northern Italy. Taken from its original sacred space and later donated by the de Young Museum to be placed in the heart of an academic building dedicated to the arts and humanities, it is now a reminder of many passages: from one place to another, from the past to the present, from the tangible world to the spiritual realm. Portale reminds viewers of the dynamics between culture and power, past and present. Presented by Thacher Gallery Ramon's Tailor Gallery 628 Jones Street @Geary The Tenderloin, San Francisco December 7, 2017 - February 1, 2018 Opening Reception and First Thursdays Art Walk: Thursday Dec 7, 2017, 6 - 10 pm Closing Reception and First Thursdays Art Walk: Thursday February 1, 2018, 6 - 10 pm Alhambra S.R.O. is a multidisciplinary art project that consists of a site-specific installation and a gastronomical experience drawn from a local immigrant community of the Tenderloin in San Francisco. This project not only playfully engages with the architectural features of the gallery but also comments upon the cultural and social dynamics of this neighborhood. Inspired by the landmark “Alhambra Apartments” on Geary St, I call attention to the irony of the cultural appropriation of Arabic architecture in the early 20th century and the contemporary stigmatization of islamic people in what is perhaps the most culturally diverse neighborhood in San Francisco. The “Alhambra Apartments” is among several buildings in the Tenderloin that are categorized as a Moorish Revival Style of architecture. This exotic style flourished after the 1906 earthquake, when the formerly residential neighborhood of single family homes was rebuilt as multistory buildings often with dramatic facades of the Exotic Revival style. Many of these buildings have become S.R.O. (Single Occupancy Room) Hotels. As a native Spaniard from Jerez de la Frontera, I am aware of the profound influences that Arabic culture left in Andalucia, the Alhambra of Granada being the most important example. In fact, the name “De La Frontera" alludes to the border between the Christians and the Moorish Kingdom of Granada. This Site-Specific installation consists of a geometric patten found in The Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain, made of hand-cut pieces of recycled carpet from a hotel in the Tenderloin. The pattern will be repeated through the gallery, including floors emphasizing the decorative style of Arabic tiles. Parallel to the artwork, in collaboration with the local community and chef Tomas Marconi, I will create a pastry with influences from Yemeni cuisine and from the Arabic-Andalusi desserts of my home town Jerez de la Frontera. By transgressing the bounds of fine art and invoking gastronomy, we move from spectator to companion, literally one we share bread with. The food serves as a bridge from xenophobic stereotypes to conviviality. The installation also engages the storefront window of the gallery, that will have a postcard featuring the stereotypical Moorish buildings facades of the Tenderloin. Guests are invited upon leaving the space of the installation to take a tour, guided by a copy of a hand-drawn map of buildings, restaurants, markets, and mosques—All features of a neighborhood, full of neighbors to meet as well.  Learn more about Tomas Marconi phd here
Daily Slots, the guerrilla art project in collaboration with Eliza Barrios, will be featured at the Luggage Store Gallery's next exhibition. Addressing artist who have to navigate or break the law in order to express themselves, this upcoming show called ILLEGAL opens this coming Friday.
Daily Slots is an ongoing project that reflects the issues that affect our city. Using the newspaper stands located along Market, Montgomery Street and Civic Center Plaza as “vehicles to deliver information”, my collaborator and I send messages through the windows of these structures. Altering the visual landscape of the pedestrian/urban environment, the messages are a mixture of iconography and slogans that call attention to the economy, consumerism and un-sustainability of the capitalistic culture. ILLEGAL The Luggage Store Gallery, San Francisco Nov 10 - Dec 16, 2017 Opening, Friday Nov 10, 6 - 9pm (music performance by Tropical City) Remembrance and Resistance SOMArts Annual Day of the Dead Exhibition October 6 - November 9, 2017 SOMArts 934 Brannan St, San Francisco, CA Tejiendo la Vida de un Maya" ("Threading the Life of a Mayan") is the title of an altar in collaboration with Adriana Camarena and Jose Gongora Pat honoring the life of his brother Luis, killed by the SFPD in 2016. Both Luis and Jose are from a small village in Yucatan, Mexico. Women in their village have carried for generations the tradition of working with embroidery and textiles. Using the dichotomy text/textile, both with same origin, we used hand dyed threads to weave Luis' story, from his origins in Yucatan to his life as an immigrant in San Francisco. This non-traditional altar uses textile as the silent voice, as a metaphor for repressed or untold stories. Adriana Camarena is a Mission District writer and researcher focused on social justice. More information about her work here
Carpet Diem is the title of a permanent carpet installation I created at the GO! office, downtown San Francisco. Its title points out to a new use of this recycled material. Over the last couple of weeks I hand cut 108 pieces of carpet that, following a geometric pattern, playfully engage with the almost 40' long office wall. With my labyrinths I look for connection and interaction with the public, inviting them to wander along an alternative journey to the sometimes imposed urban layout. The same as the labyrinth proposes a new sacred territory for meditation and awareness, the geometric pattern of this carpet installation offer the public a powerful meditation tool. Geometric patterns, labyrinths or mandalas have taken me to travel around the world to places where I've witnessed the connection between these intricate constructions and ancient magical rituals. Carpet Diem
37' x 10' Carpet Tiles Permanent Installation at GO!, downtown San Francisco I am honored to have my work featured at Rebecca Solnit's most recent book, The Mother of All Questions. Six large format charcoal drawings from the series HairScapes are part of this follow-up to her national best seller Men Explain Things to Me. Using a combination of humor and profound insight, Solnit's new book offers indispensable commentary on women who refuse to be silenced, misogynistic violence, the fragile masculinity of the literary canon, the gender binary, the recent history of rape jokes, and much more. Feminism and femminity can empower each other and definitely The Mother of All Questions arrives at a crucial moment... The Mother of All Questions by Rebecca Solnit Published by Haymarket Books Book Release, March, 2017 Book available at Green Arcade www.rebeccasolnit.net I see drawing as a form of connection with the space around me. When drawing and architecture coexist there’s no separation between the maker, the object and the viewer; between you and me. When this integration happens I see the world as an extension of who I am. Cavemen lived a fully shamanic experience of art and space, projecting onto the cave walls their own psyche. Drawing repetitive lines allows me to enter my subconscious mind and, like with Ariadne’s Thread, retrieve my most hidden secrets and bring them back to light.This is the game of life, a sutil thread that helps us to find our center in the labyrinths of our consciousness. |
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