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EMILIA GARCÍA was born in Los Angeles, California. Her journey began on her grandparents' ranch in the small town of Piru, California, where she was raised by her grandparents while her parents worked to provide for the family. In 1996, her grandermother's death drove her to leave the corporate world and immerse herself in her artwork. As a Chicana artist, García's original goal was to provide the community with a line of greeting cards and candles depicting the beauty and culture of her indigenous roots. Because of her success, her work can now be found throughout the United States. In 2004, she was nominated by the International Scientific Committee to exhibit her work in the 2005 Biennale of Contemporary Art in Florence, Italy. Most recently, she was commissioned to paint the world-renowned singer, Chavela Vargas, which she presented to her in Tepoztlán, Morelos, Mexico. "My work is centered on the beauty of our culture, who we are and where we come from," says García. "I try to convey images that speak of strength and love through family and celebration all the while focusing on the spirit of women. Although my influence has been from the great Mexican masters, my inspiration comes from my grandmother's love and her presence within me. It is through the closing of her eyes that she has opened my eyes to the reality of what I have become." García's website is www.burnttortilla.com. |
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RUBY CHACÓN is a native of Utah, whose work has been exhibited around the Southwest and in London, Tokyo, and Osaka, Japan. Her work has been added to The Chicano Art Collection, a body of work that is archived in various international museums. Chacón received the Cultural Heritage Award in 2003, the City Weekly Artsy award for best self portraits in 2006, the Governor's Mansion Artist Award for visual arts in 2007, and the Salt Lake City Mayor's Award for visual arts in 2007. She has been featured in magazines such as AHA!, OYE, Sky, Bello, and Salt Lake Magazine. Her work also appears in Triumphs of Our Communities: Four Decades of Mexican American Art. Chacón was voted by the Salt Lake Tribune newspaper as one of five Utahns of the Year for 2006 and was named by Connect magazine as one of the twenty most influential Latinos in Utah. Currently, Chacón serves on many boards and committees such as the Salt Lake City Public Library, the Salt Lake Neighborhood Housing Services, the Salt Lake County Art Selection Committee, and the Utah Arts Council Art Acquisition Committee. Recently, she finished two murals, one for Catholic Community Services and one with the students of Horizonte. She received her BFA in painting and drawing in 1998 from the University of Utah. She has a fifteen-year-old musician son, Orion, and a filmmaker/writer husband, Terry Hurst. |
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GILBERT "MAGÚ" LUJÁN, an influential Chicano sculptor, muralist, and painter, is a founding member of the Chicano art collective Los Four, whose exhibition in 1974 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art was the first in the city of Los Angeles by Chicano artists. Luján was instrumental in defining the aesthetics of Chicano visual culture by organizing art exhibits and artists' conferences. In the 1980s and '90s, he became known for his fanciful anthropomorphic animals, wildly colored lowrider cars, and Day of the Dead installation altars. He was commissioned as a design principal for the Hollywood and Vine train station in Los Angeles in 1990; by decade's end, he completed wall tiles and sculptural benches that symbolized the area's rich cinematic and agricultural histories and the role Chicanos play in contemporary popular culture. At seven feet long and nearly three feet wide, the exhibition sculpture, Limoztlan, East in Eden, is the actual scale model used in the train station project. Made of papier mâché over cardboard on a plywood base and peopled by a group of cacti figures, Luján's creation recalls Mexican folk craft and is his homage to fellow artisans. "My cultural vehicle series has been a merging of ancient mythologies into new and urban ones," says Luján, whose strong ties to his ancestors influences his work. Luján grew up in East Los Angeles and earned two college degrees--a BA in Ceramic Sculpture from California State University, Long Beach and an MFA in Sculpture from the University of California, Irvine. Currently an instructor at Pomona College, Luján resides at Pomona Art Colony. His installations can be found at a number of well-known museums, including the Corcoran Gallery in New York City. Luján's website is http://magulandia.com. |
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| SAM CORONADO has owned art studios in Dallas, Houston, and Austin. In Austin, he was a co-founder of Mexic-Arte Museum, the state's official Mexican and Mexican American art museum. He also founded the Serie Project, a nonprofit organization with a mission to create and promote serigraph prints created by Latino artists and others in a workshop envcironment. Currently, Coronado is a professor at Austin Community College in Austin, Texas, in the Visual Communication Department. His website is www.coronadostudio.com. |
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