by Eva Dameron
Daily Lobo
Albert Rosales is all about meeting people.
He has gathered a group of Chicano artists who met each other sporadically through networking, and put together "Revolution: Chicano Art Show." The show is on Sunday, July 10 at the Harwood Art Center. It will be made up of more than 10 artists, with nearly 40 pieces for sale.
Rosales said now is a good time for cultural changes, and that is the reason behind "Revolution."
"Chicano is bigger than Hispanic," he said. "It's not government-made, but a term made by the people. 'Hispanic' is lowering yourself to a label someone else has given you because you don't know who you are."
He said the focus is more on the artist than the art; someone will either like a painting or not, criticize it, and then move on. It doesn't fill the void that a person can fill.
"You get to know more about the art the more you know the artist," he said. "Every mind is a different world."
Many participants in the show have a background in graffiti, and they carry over the spray paint medium into their canvas paintings, mixing it with acrylic or oil paints.
Artist Ray Melendez uses mixed media, combining things like spray paint, tape and paint markers. He has been working on canvas for the past year.
"I did one where there is a muerte [death], and he's on his knees proposing to the moon," he said.
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"My name is floating in the cloud. I have all these stars and the desert is on the bottom. There's all this blood - blood splatters on the desert from people that had died."
Melendez said he also goes by the name "Muerte."
"I had them put that on the flier because this is my second show," he said. "More people will recognize that name than if I put my real one."
He said people from certain tribes in Africa are given their first name at birth. Then they are given a second name at 12, when their personalities start to develop. They get another name later to describe who they become in life.
Rudy Montoya is another artist featured in the show. He said he started drawing comic book characters as a kid. As he got older, he began writing graffiti. He later expanded his art into abstraction and realism.
"Right now the stuff I paint has a dark feeling to it," he said. "I paint a lot of skulls - scary stuff. It has good meaning though. A lot of it stems out of oppression and the human condition ... feelings of hate and love and things like that."
Aside from the art exhibit, the event will also include break-dancing, salsa dancing and a DJ.
Money from artwork purchases goes entirely into the artists' pockets.
