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Elsa Flores | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1955 |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | |
| Known for | Chicano Art |
| Spouse | Carlos Almaraz |
Elsa Flores (born 1955 in Las Vegas, Nevada) is a well known Chicana street artist. [1] Her mother's name was Maria Valenzuela and she was originally from a small village called San Javier located in Sinaloa, Mexico. [1] She is one of the best known members of the Chicano street art movement.
Elsa Flores demonstrated interest in arts from a very young age. She grew up on Los Angeles' east side, [2] where Chicanos comprise a large percentage of the state's population. While a high school student, Flores received a scholarship to attend the Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts. [3] She then studied photography at California State University Los Angeles and afterwards enrolled at the Art Center College of Design [3] in Pasadena, where she focused on her drafting skills. [4] While at the Art Center, she taught art and music education at Plaza de la Raza with artist Carlos Almaraz and Louie Pérez and David Hidalgo of Los Lobos. Flores occasionally performed in Los Lobos, as well as in the punk band The Knuckleheads formed with Pérez and Hildago. The latter band mixed electronic instruments with the accordion, violin and flute. [4]
Flores began to gain recognition for her paintings, which have been exhibited around the world, during the 1970s. She met Carlos Almaraz in 1974, [5] a fellow Chicano who was part of the early Chicano street art movement. Almaraz was a member of the famed Los Four artist collective. Elsa Flores and Carlos Almaraz eventually married in 1981, [6] and the two collaborated on one of the most famed Chicano murals, the California Dreamscape . [7] While Almaraz was already an icon among Chicanos because of his murals across California (as part of Los Four [7] and as a solo artist), "California Dreamscape" helped Flores become an icon herself among Chicano artists. The 15' x 70' California Dreamscape mural was commissioned by the California Arts Council and is exhibited at the Reagan State Building on 3rd and Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles.
In the celebratory year leading up to the Los Angeles bicentennial, Flores, Pérez and other artists collaborated to complicate the celebrations. Together with Pérez, Flores produced a multimedia event at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, which took place on September 5, 1980. Electric guitar, recordings played on tape recorders, and participants yelling at the audience were features of the event. In a related action, she photographed Pérez as "Screwy Louie" carrying a cross through the Second Street Tunnel. [4]
Carlos Almaraz was diagnosed with AIDS during the 1980s, eventually leading to his death. After his death, Flores' fame continued to grow. Her paintings have been shown, to critical acclaim,[ citation needed ] in museums and art houses in places such as Hawaii, New York City and Mexico. She has had solo exhibitions in New Mexico and in Los Angeles.[ citation needed ] Many of her other exhibitions have been group exhibitions where her paintings have been showcased alongside those of other famous artists.[ citation needed ]
Carlos D. Almaraz was a Mexican-American artist and a pioneer of the Chicano art movement. He was one of the founder of the Centro de Arte Público (1977–1979), a Chicano/Chicana arts organization in Highland Park, Los Angeles.
Los Four was a Chicano artist collective active based in Los Angeles, California. The group was instrumental in bringing the Chicano art movement to the attention of the mainstream art world.
Roberto Isaac "Beto" de la Rocha is a Mexican-American painter, graphic artist, and muralist. He was part of the Chicano art collective Los Four for a few years. De la Rocha was also influential in re-establishing the traditional Mexican celebration of the Day of the Dead in Los Angeles. He is the father of Rage Against the Machine vocalist and lyricist Zack de la Rocha.
Balmy Alley is a one-block-long alley that is home to the most concentrated collection of murals in the city of San Francisco. It is located in the south central portion of the Inner Mission District between 24th Street and Garfield Square. Since 1973, most buildings on the street have been decorated with a mural.
RIVERA & RIVERA is a contemporary art gallery in West Hollywood, California, owned by Carlos A. Rivera.
Judithe Hernández is an American artist and educator, she is known as a muralist, pastel artist, and painter. She is a pioneer of the Chicano art movement and a former member of the art collective Los Four. She is based in Los Angeles, California and previously lived in Chicago.
Asco was an East Los Angeles based Chicano artist collective, active from 1972 to 1987. Asco adopted its name as a collective in 1973, making a direct reference to the word's significance in Spanish ("asco"), which is disgust or repulsion. Asco's work throughout 1970s and 1980s responded specifically to socioeconomic and political problems surrounding the Chicano community in the United States, as well the Vietnam War. Harry Gamboa Jr., Glugio "Gronk" Nicandro, Willie Herrón and Patssi Valdez form the core members of the group.
Laura Aguilar was an American photographer. She was born with auditory dyslexia and attributed her start in photography to her brother, who showed her how to develop in dark rooms. She was mostly self-taught, although she took some photography courses at East Los Angeles College, where her second solo exhibition, Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell, was held. Aguilar used visual art to bring forth marginalized identities, especially within the LA Queer scene and Latinx communities. Before the term Intersectionality was used commonly, Aguilar captured the largely invisible identities of large bodied, queer, working-class, brown people in the form of portraits. Often using her naked body as a subject, she used photography to empower herself and her inner struggles to reclaim her own identity as “Laura”- a lesbian, fat, disabled, and brown person. Although work on Chicana/os is limited, Aguilar has become an essential figure in Chicano art history and is often regarded as an early "pioneer of intersectional feminism” for her outright and uncensored work. Some of her most well-known works are Three Eagles Flying, The Plush Pony Series, and Nature Self Portraits. Aguilar has been noted for her collaboration with cultural scholars such as Yvonne Yarbo-Berjano and receiving inspiration from other artists like Judy Dater. She was well known for her portraits, mostly of herself, and also focused upon people in marginalized communities, including LGBT and Latino subjects, self-love, and social stigma of obesity.
Roberto Chavez is an American artist. known for his personally symbolic portraits, public murals and "funny-grotesque" paintings that reflect the multicultural landscape of Los Angeles. He was recently included in the Getty Center's Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A., 1945-1980 and the Smithsonian’s Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art exhibits.
Dora De Larios was an American ceramist and sculptor working in Los Angeles. She was known for her work's clean lines and distinctive glazes, as well as for her line of tableware created under her family-run company Irving Place Studio. Also a muralist working with tile, De Larios was noted for her style, which reflects mythological and pan-cultural themes.
Sandra de la Loza is an American artist living and working in Los Angeles. She is the founder and only official member of the Pocho Research Society of Erased and Invisible History (2001), a collaborative project working with artists, activist, and historians to investigate place and memory through public interventions.
Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation was a traveling exhibit of Chicano/a artists which toured the United States from 1990 through 1993. CARA visited ten major cities and featured over 128 individual works by about 180 different Chicano/a artists. The show was also intended to visit Madrid and Mexico City. CARA was the first time a Chicano exhibit received major attention from the press and it was the first exhibit that collaborated between Chicanos and major museums in the U.S. The show was considered a "notable event in the development of Chicano art." Another unique feature of CARA was the "extensive planning" that attempted to be as inclusive as possible and which took place more than five years prior to the opening at Wight Art Gallery.
Sonia Amalia Romero is an American artist, she is known for her printmaking, mixed media linocut prints, murals, and public art based in Los Angeles. She is known for depicting Los Angeles, Latin American imagery, and Chicano themes in her work.
Chicana art emerged as part of the Chicano Movement in the 1960s. It used art to express political and social resistance through different art mediums. Chicana artists explore and interrogate traditional Mexican-American values and embody feminist themes through different mediums such as murals, painting, and photography. The momentum created from the Chicano Movement spurred a Chicano Renaissance among Chicanas and Chicanos. Artists voiced their concerns about opression and empowerment in all areas of race, gender, class, and sexuality. Chicana feminist artists and Anglo-feminist took a different approach in the way they collaborated and made their work during the 1970's. Chicana feminist artists utilized artistic collaborations and collectives that included men, while Anglo-feminist artists generally utilized women-only participants.Art has been used as a cultural reclamation process for Chicana and Chicano artists allowing them to be proud of their roots by combining art styles to illustrate their multi-cultured lives.
Rita Gonzalez is an American curator, author and media artist. She is the head of the contemporary art department at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), an institution she has worked at since 2004. Many of her curatorial projects involve under-recognized Latinx and Latin American artists.
Dolores Guerrero-Cruz is an American artist, she is known for her contemporary art through paintings, murals, and graphic art. Her art reflects her advocacy towards the feminist movement and empowerment movement for the Chicano and Latin community.
The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, Culture & Industry of the Riverside Art Museum, or The Cheech, is an art museum in Riverside, California, United States. The center is focused on the presentation and study of chicano art from across the United States. It is a collaborative effort between stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and collector Cheech Marin, the City of Riverside, which provided the facility to house the collection, and the Riverside Art Museum, which manages the center. The collection is housed in the old Riverside public library, and strives to be a world-class institution for the research and study of "all things [related to] Chicano art". It is the first North American museum facility dedicated exclusively to Mexican-American and Chicano art.
Frank Edward Romero is an American artist considered to be a pioneer in the Chicano art movement. Romero's paintings and mural works explore Chicano and Los Angeles iconography, often featuring palm trees and bright colors.
Lucila Villaseñor Grijalva is a Chicana muralist who was born in Los Angeles, California. Her art style is inspired by graffiti art.
Irene Peréz is a muralist known for her membership in the Latina muralist group, Las Mujeres Muralistas and her contributions to the group mural Maestrapeace, at the Woman's Building in San Francisco, California.
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