Artist Spotlight
Joe Fedderson

By Tyler Noland, SOU ’21

The landscape of the American West was once untouched by industrialization before indigenous tribes were pushed onto reservations, and once pristine landscapes were transformed into the modern world. Joe Feddersen was born in 1953 in Omak, Washington and is an enrolled member of the Colville tribe. In 1872 the U.S. Government created the Colville reservation, downsizing the tribe’s land from 39 million acres to only 1.5 million. Due to government-built Dams, the Colville reservation landscape has been changed and transformed multiple times throughout its history. Feddersen grew up on the reservation and the traditional practice of reading landscapes has had a lasting impact on his work.  

In contrast to the work of Wendy Red Star, Feddersen has been a working contemporary artist for much longer, demonstrating the generational gap between both their practices and artistic styles. While Feddersen’s medium has changed over his career, his intrinsic observation of landscape has remained. He focuses on the fact that the land is a constant, and everything else simply changes as years pass and new technologies are reflected on the earth. Feddersen’s piece, “Parking Lot with Stars” is a blown glass vessel decorated in a style that makes the viewer think of traditional indigenous designs, it isn’t until one reads the title that his contemporary take on landscape is revealed. This practice of using more historically traditional imagery in contrast to modern symbolism and influences is common in Feddersen’s artwork. 

Fedderesen’s monotype, “Blue Sideways Drips” is on display in the Schneider’s Main Gallery. In this work he again demonstrates his mastery of combining indigenous traditions with urban concepts and artistic practices. Here he uses spray paint in combination with glyph iconography. This use of spray paint reflects a modern interpretation of the origin of the petroglyph. Feddersen is making viewers consider the connotations of using spray paint, and how urban graffiti might fit into the human tradition of marking their landscapes with symbols. 

Almost all of Feddersen’s work on display in the Winter Exhibition was made more recently in his career and his work, especially with petroglyphs, includes more recent technology such as iPhone and robots in tandem with elk and the night sky. Viewers can use Feddersen’s artwork as a lens to examine the fleeting nature of the landscapes we so often take for granted. The face of the earth will continue to change with the times, but the land itself remains constant. 

The Winter Exhibition Two Generations: Joe Feddersen & Wendy Red Star will be on display in the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, OR until March 14th, 2020.

 

Tyler Noland is a junior Creative Writing major at Southern Oregon University. She is originally from the Bay Area, and this is her second year at the Schneider Museum of Art. While not working on her writing she enjoys thrifting for her newest funky outfit.

Artist Spotlight
Justin Favela

By Tyler Noland, SOU ’21

In Fall 2019, Justin Favela is bringing the Ashland community into his art. Known for his signature piñata style, Las Vegas based artist Justin Favela currently has an ongoing installation in the Schneider Museum of Art. As the Visiting Artist and Scholar in Teaching (VAST) this term for the Oregon Center for the Arts, he is both teaching and displaying his work in the museum. The installation is in collaboration with his class and will be in progress for the length of the exhibition December 14, 2019. 

The exhibition entitled Together/Juntos has come to stand as a pinnacle for community collaboration. The mural is a collection of images from Favela’s students, each of them sending him a picture of a food that holds significance for their families. These foods sit together in a large mural on all the walls of the museum’s Main Gallery. The work is bringing people together physically, as well as the familial togetherness represented through the foods. The title of the exhibition references something Favela’s grandmother has been saying his whole life. Justin says, “Together/Juntos is kind of a joking way of being more inclusive since some of my younger relatives don’t speak Spanish.” This phrase possesses that familial inclusivity of community, and through this exhibition spreads its reach to everyone involved. The mural at its core is about working together.

Justin Favela is a Guatemalan-Mexican-American who, through his unique approach to pop art, is tackling similar themes of identity that carry through all the Fall Exhibitions. By taking charge of a commodified aspect of Mexican culture, he takes control of a certain aspect of representation. Piñatas are fine art despite their commercial perception, and Justin proves just that. He is creating his own version of a cultural cornerstone, and because of that Justin is putting out something uniquely his own. 

Now in its fifth week, the Favela Tuesday Team is an opportunity for the community to volunteer in the assembly of the piece. Hosted from 4-8pm every Tuesday until December 10th, it is open to the public where people are encouraged to stop by for any amount of time. The Museum does ask that participants RSVP to sma@sou.edu. Working closely side by side on the mural, people have the perfect chance to talk to someone new and find a momentary sense of purpose and comradery through art. 

Together/Juntos will be on display in the Main Gallery at the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, OR from October 24th to December 14th, 2019. 

 

Tyler Noland is a junior Creative Writing major at Southern Oregon University. She is originally from the Bay Area, and this is her second year at the Schneider Museum of Art. While not working on her writing she enjoys thrifting for her newest funky outfit.

Artist Spotlight
Permanent Collection

By Tyler Noland, SOU ’21

Starting Fall 2019, the Schneider’s Entry Gallery now features works from our Permanent Collection as well as Masterworks on Loan. While the Masterworks on Loan program functions on an availability basis, works from the Permanent Collection will now be on rotation in the Entry Gallery as space is available. Due to the generous gifts of the Masterworks on Loan during these exhibitions, the Permanent Collection pieces are constricted to a select few works that accompany the spirit of the Fall Exhibitions.

One of these featured works is by David Siqueiros, the youngest member of “Los Tres Grandes” of Mexican muralism. Siqueiros along with Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco headed the Mexican muralist movement. Born in 1896 in Chihuahua City, Mexico, Siqueiros spent his life throwing himself into both art and politics. He championed the art movement referred to as Socialist Realism, he brought his politics into his art in order to make a public statement that he hoped would be valuable to people, especially the lower class. He used these murals to display the social problems and suffering that he saw people experiencing. Often radical in his political beliefs and actions, his artistic statements did not stay confined to his murals. The piece on display, “Mujer en la Cárcel” is just one of his lithographs owned by the museum, its title translates to “Woman in Jail”. This piece highlights the way Siqueiros brought his socio-political beliefs into his work, its colors and movement create a feeling of suffering. Through his travels he amassed a collection of influences on his style, most notably cubism, surrealism, and hints of pre-Columbian art. The woman at the center of “Mujer en la Cárcel” stands amidst grey tones and cubist fantasy, her figure seems to be swept up into a cold wind and turbulent ground. Standing as a pillar for social change, this lithograph encapsulates the often harsh but supremely beautiful works of David Siqueiros. 

Also on display as a part of the Permanent collection are works by Francisco Pichardo and Maria de Los Angeles. Featured in the Winter 2019 show From Ignorance to Wisdom, Maria de Los Angeles has a wonderful history working with the Schneider and we are happy to have one of her works in our Permanent Collection. Her screenprint, “Skate Date” features her signature use of skeletons in a melding of both modern culture and traditional Mexican imagery. 

Works from the Permanent Collection will be on display in the Entry Gallery at the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, OR from October 24th to December 14th, 2019. 

Tyler Noland is a junior Creative Writing major at Southern Oregon University. She is originally from the Bay Area, and this is her second year at the Schneider Museum of Art. While not working on her writing she enjoys thrifting for her newest funky outfit.

Artist Spotlight
Petroglyphs in Contemporary Art

By Tyler Noland, SOU ’21

Petroglyphs are an art form that holds intrinsically historic connotations. Often found in caves and on rocks, petroglyphs have been used for thousands of years as symbols carved in stone. These symbols are meant to represent a shared cultural meaning. While they have been found in many different cultures all across the globe, the artwork of Joe Feddersen, one of the featured artists in the Winter Exhibit, dials in on the use of petroglyphs in indigenious North American Tribes. Joe Feddersen is a member of the Colville Tribe where they place high cultural value on petroglyphs as ancestral communications. Many of the pieces of Feddersen’s art featured at the Schneider include glyphs iconography with both traditional and contemporary contexts. 

On display in the Schneider’s Heiter Gallery is Feddersen’s installation entitled “Charmed”, a sculptural collection of glyphs. Surrounding this main work are expanded pieces from the “Echo” series. “Charmed” encompasses the far wall of the gallery with floor to ceiling hanging glass glyphs, creating a sculpture that reminds viewers of a wind chime. Feddersen’s artwork combines traditional indigenous designs with that of the contemporary landscape. He demonstrates that to be a contemporary artist one does not have to abandon the traditional, but instead consider how new and old work together. This piece juxtaposes glyphs of arrows alongside the symbol for the deathly hallows from Harry Potter, and is an excellent example of this idea. Important symbols in the landscape of tribe life used to include animals and nature, but Feddersen now contrasts these with images of airplanes and power lines. Using culturally powerful imagery the meaning of Feddersen’s glyph iconography depends on the ultimate interpretation of the viewer.    

Joe Fedderen’s “Charmed” and “Echo” will be on display in the Heiter Gallery at the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, OR until March 14th, 2020. 

Tyler Noland is a junior Creative Writing major at Southern Oregon University. She is originally from the Bay Area, and this is her second year at the Schneider Museum of Art. While not working on her writing she enjoys thrifting for her newest funky outfit.

Artist Spotlight
Sarah Shebaro

By Tyler Noland, SOU ’21

The Winter Term visiting artist and scholar in teaching (VAST) resident, Sarah Shebaro is an artist, instructor, and co-founder of Striped Light, a letterpress shop, gallery, and recording studio in Knoxville, Tennessee. With a masters in printmaking from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Shebaro has devoted her career to a love of letterpress and original designs. She is currently in the seventh week of her printmaking class at the Oregon Center for the Arts, and has a solo exhibition up in the Boise Cascade Gallery in the Marion Ady art building.

Her Solo Exhibition entitled, “A Time and a Place” features work she produced only since arriving in Ashland at the beginning of January. Opening on February 7th, and running through the 28th, her exhibition lines the walls of the Boise Cascade Gallery in the Marion Ady Building, with prints and paintings that often have repeating motifs that draw viewers into a pattern. The exhibition statement reads, “A visual reaction to wading through layers of biased visual history, the overlooked piles of images/icons/objects that propel us through everyday life and saying the wrong thing at the worst time.” Her work often has pop art tendencies with the use of iconography and the repetition of objects. For instance, macaroni is a recurring image in her recent works with this exhibition being no exception. Shebaro is one of many artists keeping the art of printmaking and the letterpress alive. Possessing a revived passion for analog media, her work teaches that using older processes changes the creative flow. Printmaking is a revived artform, and something that is here stay with a new generation of artists. 

At the first FREE Family Day of the term, Shebaro led a Styrofoam relief printing activity met with wild success. On Saturday March 7th, 2020 from 10:00 to 1:00pm she will be leading another printmaking activity for FREE Family Day in the Marion Ady Building printmaking studio next to the museum, providing the public with free printmaking experience with an expert. Sarah Shebaro’s work will be up in the Boise Cascade Gallery of Southern Oregon University’s Marion Ady art building until the 28th of February. For more information on Sarah Shebaro visit sshebaro.com.

Tyler Noland is a junior Creative Writing major at Southern Oregon University. She is originally from the Bay Area, and this is her second year at the Schneider Museum of Art. While not working on her writing she enjoys thrifting for her newest funky outfit.

Artist Spotlight
Self Help Graphics & Art

By Tyler Noland, SOU ’21

Founded during the height of the Chicano Civil Rights movement in the 1970s, Self Help Graphics & Art has been a pillar of the East Los Angeles artistic community for almost fifty years. Self Help Graphics & Art was originally started by artists Carlos Bueno, Antonio Ibanez, Frank Hernandez, and Sister Karen Boccalero. Their goal was to provide more available access to training and facilities for latinx artists to develop their talents and get involved in the arts. Since that time, SHGA has brought art opportunities to the greater East Los Angeles latinx community, and sponsored the careers of hundreds of artists. A powerhouse of printmaking, SHGA aims to advance and encourage young latinx artists by giving them the training and opportunities they would not otherwise have access to. 

A selection of prints from Self Help Graphics & Art are featured in the Fall Exhibitions. These works from a variety of artists express personal perspectives surrounding latinx identity in the face of current and past turbulent periods. The artists of SHGA are encouraged to make art exploring their Chicano heritage as well as their present realties. The works on display illustrate this range of personal styles. They are a group of diverse and engaging prints that all have something unique to express, but still have an underlying thread connecting them. Included in these prints are works from revolutionary “Los Four” members, Judithe Hernandez and Frank Romero, who paved the way for Chicano art in the 1970s.

The subject matter of these prints range from Los Angeles freeways, to the human heart. Each work pulls the viewer into an intimate conversation about human vulnerability, our pasts, presents, and each person’s personal relationship with familiarity. On display in the Schneider’s Treehaven Gallery, the works from Self Help Graphics & Art complement and challenge the other exhibitions on display this fall.     

Prints from Self Help Graphics & Art will be on display in the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, OR from October 24th to December 14th.

 

Tyler Noland is a junior Creative Writing major at Southern Oregon University. She is originally from the Bay Area, and this is her second year at the Schneider Museum of Art. While not working on her writing she enjoys thrifting for her newest funky outfit.

Artist Spotlight
Self-Portraiture in the work of Wendy Red Star and Joe Fedderson

By Tyler Noland, SOU ’21

In an age in which self-portraiture is everywhere, contemporary art is tasked with taking on the vitality of an artist’s self-reflection. Featured in the Winter Exhibition are two Northwest Indigenous artists, Wendy Red Star and Joe Feddersen, who despite their generational gap both began their careers exploring self-portraiture. Many people’s first thought when they hear Indigenous artwork is to think of traditional baskets and weaving, a mistake that contemporary artists like Feddersen and Red Star have been setting straight from the beginning of their careers. These two artists demonstrate the dynamic nature of identity in all aspects of their work. Evidently, their self-portraits are a prime example of this. 

Joe Feddersen’s self-portrait, Surface Self Portrait, is on display in the Schneider’s Main Gallery. This is a multimedia work featuring a photo of Feddersen, push pins, staples, and various patterns. He placed himself as an Indigenous artist among modern artistic techniques such as the use of office supplies. This is in contrast to the patterns on the rest of the work that remind the viewer of something traditional, but which have clearly been updated. Made in 1988, this is the oldest piece of Feddersen’s work on display in this exhibition. 

Wendy Red Star’s Four Seasons series is her best known work. These photographs feature her in front of various artificial backdrops she created to emulate that of a natural history museum. Her artistic approach to this series, contrasts her identity to the historic and popular perceptions of what it means to be Indigenous. She combats this general prejudice by using herself as the subject in the midst of astro turf and fake seventies living room murals. Wendy has two more self-portraits in the exhibition, both of which also feature her daughter. Using the self-portrait format, she has updated what it looks like to be a modern Indigenous woman and artist. Many of her images correct the historic representations of her ancestors photographed by Edward Curtis. 

Both Feddersen and Red Star show the world that Indigenous artwork is contemporary, relevant, and stunning. They used their own image to combat the perceptions of their identities. In a society in which many people take pictures of themselves on a near daily basis, self-documentation has become both commonplace and highly artistic. The self-portraits in the Winter Exhibition demonstrate the power in being both the artist and the subject of your own thoughtful work. 

The Winter Exhibition Two Generations: Joe Feddersen & Wendy Red Star will be on display in the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, OR until March 14th, 2020.

 

Tyler Noland is a junior Creative Writing major at Southern Oregon University. She is originally from the Bay Area, and this is her second year at the Schneider Museum of Art. While not working on her writing she enjoys thrifting for her newest funky outfit.

Artist Spotlight
Together/Juntos

By Tyler Noland, SOU ’21

Justin Favela creates not only art, but also an environment with his pieces. Going into its final week of production, the exhibition Together/Juntos in the Schneider’s Main Gallery has enveloped the room. In contrast from the exhibition’s opening, the once sparsely covered walls are now coated in tissue paper from the floor up. 

At the base of Together/Juntos has been the Favela Tuesday Teams. Over the past two months the Southern Oregon community has really come together in the assembly of the mural. The beautiful thing about this installation is that everyone who came to the Tuesday Team has left their mark on the walls of the museum. The energy at these events has a certain sense of electricity, the excitement to participate in something both artistic and collaborative brought people back week after week. The Tuesday Team regulars returned with an eagerness to meet new people and watch as the mural came together. Music playing in the background, people chatting, and the rainbow colors of hundreds of pieces of tissue paper set the scene every Tuesday night. 

The final component of the exhibition will be the edition of student sculptures from Favela’s Site-Specific Art class. With their completion on Wednesday the 11th, these massive food sculptures will be on display with the mural for the final week of the Fall Exhibitions. This collaborative aspect from both Favela’s students and the members of the community have created what is truly special about Together/Juntos. Justin started with a vision and then the passion and excitement of others brought it all together. This exhibition has given the gift of collaboration to everyone who worked on it in a rare opportunity for people to be involved in the production of fine art. It is Favela’s unique piñata style and commitment to working together that makes his artwork so truly special. Shining through the production of the mural is both love and heritage, he teaches people that art is for everyone and embracing who you are and where you come from is the key to community. 

Everyone is encouraged to come see the final week of the Fall Exhibitions to not only see the progression of Together/Juntos, but to see the wonderful and thoughtful art by all the artists exhibited. 

The Fall Exhibitions will be on display in the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, OR until December 14th, 2019.

 

Tyler Noland is a junior Creative Writing major at Southern Oregon University. She is originally from the Bay Area, and this is her second year at the Schneider Museum of Art. While not working on her writing she enjoys thrifting for her newest funky outfit.

Artist Spotlight
V. Maldonado

By Tyler Noland, SOU ’21

Looking at Maldonado’s paintings begs us to ask: what can be said when we aren’t using words? There is something about these massive paintings that wants to be understood. They envelope their space while simultaneously explaining something unexplainable and guiding us through incredible simplicity. This was Maldonado’s attempt to try something they have never tried before, and the payoff has been incredibly positive. 

Victor Maldonado, who now goes by V., is originally from Changuitiro, Michoacan, Mexico but grew up in the Central San Joaquin Valley of California. They are currently the Assistant Dean for Diversity and Inclusions at Pacific Northwest College of Art. This is V.’s first museum show despite their work being recently purchased by the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art and the Portland Art Museum. 

Their current work is a response to identity. Much like many of the other exhibitions on display this fall, these paintings speak to figuring out oneself in the face of conflicting boundaries. V. is using these paintings to take control of their own design. The exhibition is entitled: Excerpts From a Book I’ll Never Write. The paintings are expressing all the things V. would rather express through their first language of visual art. The show is a reconsideration of the identities and boxes that have confined them in the past, and in turn becomes a visual history of who they have been and who they are now. 

Our society begs people to put themselves into boxes and define every aspect of their being as either one thing or another. Maldonado has faced the conflicts of their identity: indigenous, Mexican, masculine, feminine, immigrant, American, as well as navigating being an artist in all situations. More recently, they have decided to embrace the conflicts of all parts of their identity, this work has been the output of that decision. V. said we are all products of design; everything has been designed by someone so essentially why can’t we design the future the way we want to. 

Maldonado holds a level of personal honesty that is important to becoming an unapologetic version of oneself. It is those people who have had to face more in the pursuit of their own identities who show a certain strength that can be so powerfully translated into their work. These paintings represent an expanded sense of self for V., they embrace everything in their past and who they are in relation to it. Maldonado is fighting the system through art and personal expression, their own form of activism. 

Victor Maldonado: Excerpts From a Book I’ll Never Write will be on display in the Heiter Gallery at the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, OR from October 24th to December 14th, 2019.

Artist Spotlight
Wendy Red Star

By Tyler Noland, SOU ’21

Representation becomes a complex issue when someone’s art is considered to be both a personal and cultural statement. Wendy Red Star makes art that is unique to her experiences as a member of the Crow Tribe. Often, artwork by indigenous artists is labelled as something inherently political and non-contemporary simply because of common misconceptions. While Wendy’s artwork has political undertones, it is the simple fact of being an indigenous artist making artwork about identity outside of the colonial framework that creates political perceptions of her work. Filled with vibrant colors and patterns, Wendy’s work captures her experiences as a Crow woman as well as a contemporary female artist. Subverting the pressures of being a representational force, her art tells viewers what it’s like to be Wendy Red Star. 

On display in the Schneider’s Main Gallery are a series of Red Star’s prints. Wendy uses the Crow fair as a connecting thread throughout many of these prints, an element of her upbringing that brings forth a feeling of history both personal and otherwise. The Crow Fair is an annual county fair started in 1904 with the intention of forcing the Crow tribe to conform to modern colonial society. In order to encourage participation, the government relaxed its strict policies about dances and ceremonies, allowing native rituals at this one event. Crow fair has become a yearly celebration of Crow culture, featuring parades, dancing, and the dawning of traditional regalia for more than a hundred years now. Wendy uses images from Crow Fair in three of her Main Gallery prints, the first of which, “lilaalee = car (goes by itself) + ii = by means of which + daanniili = we parade” shows a string of cars decorated in Pendleton blankets, a Crow obsession according to Red Star. The cars in the image are dressed up in the style of horses and set to the background of patterns taken from mass produced Pendleton blankets. This is just one example of how her work within her own personal landscape is reflective of the changing nature of modern indigenious culture. 

In her print “Apsaalooke Roses” Red Star uses images of herself and her daughter at Crow fair when they were around the same age. This piece captures the matriarchal nature of the Crow tribe as it features aspects from four generations of women. Red Star uses her grandmother’s rose patterns as the backdrop to the images of herself and her daughter. In addition her mother did the embroidery on the purse her daughter is wearing in the print, tying together the familial background of roses and the generational ties between the women of her family. Although times are changing the traditions of Crow culture carry on, not only through the presence at Crow fair but also the bonds and traditions passed down through a family. 

The Winter Exhibition Two Generations: Joe Feddersen & Wendy Red Star will be on display in the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, OR until March 14th, 2020.

Tyler Noland is a junior Creative Writing major at Southern Oregon University. She is originally from the Bay Area, and this is her second year at the Schneider Museum of Art. While not working on her writing she enjoys thrifting for her newest funky outfit.

Artist Spotlight
“Los Four” and Self Help Graphics & Art

By Tyler Noland, SOU ’21

Represented among the works of Self Help Graphics & Art (SHGA), in the Schneider’s Treehaven Gallery, are “Los Four” members Judithe Hernandez and Frank Romero. “Los Four” was an artist collective founded in the early 1970s whose members included Carlos Almaraz, Frank Romero, Robert de la Rocha, Gilbert Lujan, and Judithe Hernandez. These five Latinx artists were making art at the start of the Mexican-American Civil Rights Movement and have been credited with bringing Chicano art to the attention of mainstream art institutions. After Judithe Hernandez joined the collective they did not change their name from “Los Four” because at the time they wanted to leave the group open for more members to join. Together the group had a show at Self Help Graphics & Art in 1974, and that relationship with SHGA has stayed strong into today. 

Judithe Hernandez was the fifth and only female member of “Los Four”, officially brought into the group in 1974 by Carlos Almaraz. In the past, as one of the heads of the artistic Latinx Civil Rights Movement of the 70s and 80s the focus of her work had a greater emphasis on racial identity and injustice. In more recent years, she has expanded her focus to embrace several types of activism. In one of her latest series entitled “Luchadoras”, she takes the masks inherent of traditional male Mexican wrestlers and puts them onto women. One of these prints, “Eve Awakening” is featured in the current exhibition; it displays a woman in a Luchador mask with buck horns laying in a sea of koi fish. This series brings items associated with the inherently masculine and puts them in female settings. Hernandez is arming women with the tools of men, simultaneously creating images that are both incredibly tender but undeniably strong. The anonymity and intention behind the masks gives these women a power beyond their looks and takes back the faceless strength and respect that men are afforded. Hernandez is putting her experiences as a female artist of color into her work, and the results are striking. The single piece on display with Self Help Graphics & Art illustrates the strength and beauty of her artwork.

The works of Frank Romero take on a different aspect of Latinx identity that holds a special connection to Southern California. Raised in East Los Angeles, Romero was also brought into “Los Four” by Carlos Almaraz. Over the course of his career his artwork has been heavily influenced by the experiences and landmarks inherent to Southern California. Cars, architecture, freeways, and ugly palm trees have populated his paintings and been the backdrop for his Latinx experiences. He grew up seeing Los Angeles from the back of his father’s car and that imagery has stuck with him. The print featured in the Fall Exhibitions “Untitled (Cityscape)” illustrates a Los Angeles freeway scene in Romero’s signature step back from reality. The bright vibrant orange and blues that accompany the freeway overpass show Romero’s unique perspective on the place he grew up. Romero’s artwork makes a statement about how the Latinx community shaped Los Angeles and continues to make their mark. He sees driving as an elementary part of L.A., this is shown by the way the freeway overpass towers over the rest of the print. Part of what his pieces do so well is documenting someone’s sense of home, Romero captures his version of Los Angeles and reflects his experiences back at the viewer. The use of color and large brushstrokes leaves realism behind, viewers enter a world in which history is shown in vibrant colors and one is asked to consider what it means to belong to a place. 

Prints from Self Help Graphics & Art will be on display in the Treehaven Gallery at the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, OR from October 24th to December 14th, 2019.

 

Tyler Noland is a junior Creative Writing major at Southern Oregon University. She is originally from the Bay Area, and this is her second year at the Schneider Museum of Art. While not working on her writing she enjoys thrifting for her newest funky outfit.