Finding Your Voice: Culture and Community in Latinx Art

Oct 8, 2022 4PM-5PM

Schermer Meeting Hall

Free and open to the public, registration is required. Can’t make it in person? Register to receive a link to livestream the event.  

Our collective success as a community of artists and educators depends on how we assist and cultivate the representation of Latinx artists, in both art and educational environments. This panel of Latinx artists, educators and community leaders addresses how advocacy and fostering a love of the arts is informed by Latinx culture, history and experiences. The conversation explores how these relationships impact creative communities and voices.

Viewpoints and discussions of some of today’s leading voices in Latinx advocacy address cultural stewardship and how to bolster artistic excellence in the Latinx community in Colorado and beyond. Join in this timely conversation with artists and educators Rafael Fajardo, Richard Armendariz, and Lilian Lara.

This panel is moderated by Alex Sanchez, the founder and President and CEO of Voces Unidas de las Montañas, the first Latino-created and Latino-led advocacy organization in the central mountain region.

Panel

Ricky Armendariz

Richard “Ricky” Armendariz ( 1969, El Paso, Texas) was raised on the U.S.-Mexico border, a region that heavily influenced his artistic, aesthetic, and conceptual ideas. Images that have cultural, biographical, and art historical references are carved and burned into the surface of the paintings, drawings, and wood blocks.  He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from The University of Texas at San Antonio (1995), and his Master of Fine Arts from the University of Colorado at Boulder (1999).  Armendariz is currently a Full Professor at The University of Texas at San Antonio.  In 2008, he received the Artpace Supplemental Travel Grant for travel to Mexico City, Mexico.  In 2013 was an artist in residence at Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin Germany, and in 2018 Anderson Ranch in Snowmass Village, CO.  In 2017 he was the first artist in residence at the DoSeum in San Antonio, TX.   He has exhibited at the Denver Art Museum, The Dallas Contemporary, The Blue Star Art Center in San Antonio, and Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin.  International exhibitions include: Liminal Space, DMZ Museum, South Korea (2018), Common Wounds, Bethlehem and Tel Aviv (2005), and “New Prints” Kunstlerhaus Bethanien , Berlin Germany (2013), Texas Contemporary Art”, Lalit Kala Academy, National Academy of Art, New Delhi, India(2015).  He is in the permanent collections of the San Antonio Museum of Art, McNay Art Museum, Denver Art Museum, Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Massachusetts and the Bush International Airport Houston Art Collection, and The Cheech Marin Collection, Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA.

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Rafael Fajardo

Rafael Fajardo (he/him/his) is an artist, designer, researcher and educator. Through his collaborative, SWEAT, Fajardo has been creating boundary blurring videogames as an art form since the year 2000. These games have been exhibited in museums and festivals worldwide. Fajardo’s research and creative projects have been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, by the Colorado Council on the Arts, and by MTV in excess of one million dollars. In 2004, I.D. Magazine named Fajardo among the top fifty designers in the United States. With Adán De La Garza and Justin Ankenbauer he curates a series of popup artist’s games arcades as Dizzy Spell. At the University of Denver, where he is an Associate Professor of Emergent Digital Practices, he also serves as a founding member of the Board of Advisors for the Interdisciplinary Research Institute for the Study of (in)Equality (IRISE) and is core faculty of the LatinX Center. Fajardo earned both a BA and a BFA from The University of Texas at Austin, and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. He was born in Colombia and migrated to the US with his parents in 1968. He was raised in San Antonio, Texas. Fajardo’s earliest games, Crosser and La Migra, are featured in ReVisión, an exhibition at the Denver Art Museum on display through July 2022 that is reimagining 2000 years of art history from what we now call Latin America.

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Lilian Lara

Lilian is a mixed media artist specializing in costume design, paper mache installations, and ‘rascuache’ art.  Her art leans on the dramatic and creates an outrageous display of pageantry out of the everyday. As a second generation immigrant, she remembers learning how to reuse, repair, and repurpose objects as a matter of survival. Transforming these recycled and discarded items past their intended use and appearance is a challenge she still enjoys and embraces as a matter of pride. In true Rasquachismo fashion, she makes the most from the least, creating a new identity in every work as an act of defiance and innovation. For her: cardboard, newspaper, and found objects become a way to express the resiliency and resourcefulness found in our communities while celebrating traditional motifs and her Mexican roots. 

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Alex Sánchez

Alex is one of the original founders and now serves as the Executive Director of Voces Unidas, the first Latino-created and Latino-led advocacy organization in the tri-county region. An experienced executive and community organizer, Alex has led other non-profits, managed his own political consulting firm, and has extensive corporate and government experience at the senior management level. Alex is a proud son of Mexican immigrants who grew up in El Jebel and attended Basalt schools. Alex is the first in his family to graduate from high school and receive college degrees from both Colorado Mountain College and Colorado State University. Alex is a Trustee of Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, appointed by Gov. Polis in 2019 to a four-year term. He also serves on the boards of COLOR, COLOR Action Fund, Conservation Colorado and the Anderson Ranch Arts Center, and on statewide task forces including the Governor’s Health Equity Response Team, the Governor’s New American Office’s Subcommittee on refugees and immigrants and the Center for Health Progress’ Coalition for Immigrant Health.

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