From Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi:
“The title for this exhibition, From Generation to Generation, was inspired by the iconic photograph entitled “De Generacion En Generacion”. The Mexican photographer, Lola Alvarez Bravo, captured this image of a young woman with a child resting on her hip. The mother is turned away from us, but the child looks deeply into our eyes. The idea of this exhibition is reflected in the eyes of this child which carries the life of Mexico forward through time. In a similar manner, the works of art created by Gina Gwen Palacios is carried on the shoulders of Antonio E. Garcia and Amado Pena in the history of South Texas Chicanx art. The work looks back to the past, but also looks forward to a better time of greater equality of representation in the broader scope of American art history. Showcasing South Texas art across three generations, this collaborative research project includes Texas A&M University-Kingsville (Dr. Liz Kim), Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (Dr. Carey Rote), and University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (Gina Gwen Palacios). The project is the first to document a generational view of art in South Texas from over a century, filling a necessary gap in research on the cultural history of the region spanning the Texas Rio Grande Valley to the Coastal Bend.
The artists included in the show are Antonio E. García, Amado M. Peña Jr., and Gina Gwen Palacios. García represents the first generation. He has left an immense legacy in South Texas from the early 20th century onward. A graduate of the School of The Art Institute of Chicago in 1930, Garcia is best known for his regionalist views of the Southwest and his murals in churches in and around Corpus Christi. Peña, an internationally recognized artist, who was one of the first art graduates of TAMUK in the 1960s, is known for his prints of the Chicano/a movement and vistas of the Southwest. Palacios is an associate professor of painting at UTRGV, who graduated from TAMUCC and the Rhode Island School of Design, who is creating works on the traditional and ecological materiality of South Texas history.
Works are brought together that examine the connections between regional identity and themes of political critique. García’s works bring observant and reflexive views of everyday life in the Southwest, inflected with notions of the sacred, between Mesoamerican histories and Catholic iconography. Peña’s work from the 1970s repeats visual motifs to speak forcefully about the meaning of Chicano, encompassing visual proclamations about values shared within South Texas’s Chicano communities. Palacios depicts a personal history of the South Texas region, utilizing family and historical archives, and materials connected to the cultural and environmental lineage of Tejanos.”
The post De Generacion En Generacion: 3 Generations of Chicano/a Artists appeared first on Glasstire.