Born in 1973 in Tamaulipas, Rigoberto A. Gonzalez has lived his life on both sides of the Rio Grande. After earning a BFA from UT-Pan American in 1999 and an MFA from the New York Academy of Art in 2004, he returned to his hometown. Gonzalez remembered Tamaulipas as being peaceful, calm, even boring. Now he saw stories in the newspapers about beheadings and executions. The photos reminded him of those in Baroque paintings from the 17th century, such as the Beheading of St. John the Baptist and David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio, as well as similar works of art by Jusepe de Ribera.
Gonzalez is also inspired by the Mexican corrido, a popular narrative song or ballad, about the history, oppression, and daily lives of people, which emerged during the Mexican War of Independence and flourished during the Mexican Revolution. Corridos are now heard along the U.S.-Mexico border region, particularly in the variation known as the narcocorrido, which focuses on the lives of the people involved with the drug cartels. Read more in an article published in Latino Magazine in the Fall of 2012.
Watch the exclusive Serie Project film interview: → Read more
Feb 14
Serie Project Announces Participants of 2013 Artist in Residence Program and New Membership Circle
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Serie Project Contact: Kelly Grajeda, Asst. Director (P) 512.385.3591 | (E) serie@serieproject.org
Press Contact: Alexandra M. Landeros, Roots PR (P) 512.517.0394 | (E) alexandra@rootspr.com
Serie Project Celebrates 20th Anniversary in East Austin:
Announcing Participants of 2013 Artist in Residence Program and New Membership Circle
AUSTIN, Texas – February 14, 2013 – Founded in 1993 by Austin artist Sam Coronado, the Serie Project is a nonprofit organization that offers free printmaking facilities, training and housing for 8 to 15 artists per year through a one-week Artist In Residence (AIR) program. During the residency, each artist produces an edition of 50 prints in a collaborative workshop setting with a Master Printer.
The artists participating in the 2013 Serie XX Artist in Residence Program include Farley Bookout, Margarita Cabrera, Paul del Bosque, Ana Teresa Fernandez, Sandra C. Fernandez, Nahum Flores, Rigoberto A. Gonzalez, Salvador Lopez, Oscar Magallanes, Michael Marshall, Stephanie Mercado, Brian Phillips, Patricia Tinajero, George Yepes, and Ernesto Yerena. The first artist begins printing the last week of January, and the residencies will continue through July.
Coronado established the Serie Project in East Austin with the hope to create a place where established and emerging artists of all ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds felt welcome. He envisioned a supportive environment where artists could learn the serigraphy technique through a one-on-one apprenticeship, and where affordable printmaking services and fine art prints could be made available to the community.
To ensure that the Serie Project can continue with its mission, the organization is launching a brand new membership program in February. Ever since the nonprofit was founded twenty years ago, it has relied on city grants for a majority of its funding. A membership program will allow members of the community to take an active role in becoming financial supporters of the Serie Project’s work.
Because of Coronado’s vision and dedication, the Serie Project has fostered over 250 artists to produce a collection of serigraphs, launching many of them – along with aspiring curators, art administrators, professors, and others – into successful creative careers.
Coronado has proven his commitment to the Austin community as a teacher, artist, activist, director, and a friend. But as funding for the arts has become less available over the years, it is now more crucial than ever for the organization to turn back to the grassroots community it has served for long-term financial sustainability.
For more information about the Serie XX artists or the new membership program, please contact serie@serieproject.org or 512-385-3591. To request interviews or images, please contact alexandra@rootspr.com or 512-517-0394.
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About Serie Project
The Serie Project is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to the fine art of serigraphy – a technique that produces original, hand-pulled prints – as well as promoting and exhibiting the work of Latino and other underrepresented artists, and making prints affordable to the community.
Every year, the City of Austin hosts an annual exhibit of artwork by a great diversity of artists from our local community. The Economic Growth and Redevelopment Services Office has announced the ninth annual People’s Gallery exhibition at Austin City Hall, officially opening on Friday, February 22 with an opening reception from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.
The public is invited to meet the artists and view the exhibition, which features more than 100 artworks on loan from local artists, art organizations, museums, and galleries. Light refreshments will be provided by Whole Foods Market, and selected short films from the Faces of Austin collection will screen in Council Chambers.
The 2013 exhibition includes special exhibits by Mondo Gallery and the Serie Project! The People’s Gallery exhibit will feature selections from Texas artists who participated in our 2012 Artist in Residence Program: Adriana Corral, Carlos Donjuan, Jessica Halonen, and Michael Menchaca.
For more information about the People’s Gallery, please visit the City of Austin website.
Michael Menchaca, Imperial Construction, Serigraph, 2012, Edition of 50
CLICK TO BUYMy work examines the creation of cultural identity through the use of tropes that construct a ‘Primitive-Other’. Primitivism has been utilized by many civilizations as a justification for a social “cleansing” of a state. Especially with respect to European cultural identity, these recurring images of the ‘Primitive’ have been essential in confronting cultural differences. Regarding ‘primitives’, these untamed id forces are often in complete unity with the supernatural. Images of animism, extraordinary universal forces, and zoomorphic atavism are central to primitivist expression. I appropriate these qualities as being idiosyncratic of Mexican immigrants in the U.S. My work challenges a misguided patriotism that subordinates those who have been displaced. My aim is to find how cultural and national identity can be constructed through the negation of another culture.
–Michael Menchaca
Dec 18
2012 Holiday Gift Guide
There are a bazillion holiday gift guides floating around, with ideas ranging from groovy home decor, to zen toiletries, inspiring notebooks, gourmet kitchen ware, exotic food items, bohemian accessories, and vintage toys. There’s something for every age and personality! But sometimes, it all really starts to look the same, and these days, we have so much clutter in our drawers, shelves, and tabletops, there’s the danger your gift will wind up at a yard sale.
Why not consider something to spice up your loved one’s wall? Maybe you’re really tired of seeing that painting of a cottage glowing in the woods at your parents’ house, or as much as we all love Diego Rivera, there’s only so much of the Flower Seller you can stand to look at when you visit your sister. It’s time for something new and more contemporary! Something to really get the house guests talking.
Serie Project, having produced screen prints over the last two decades, also has fine art serigraphs for every personality (we’ll leave the age part at your discretion). By purchasing one of our serigraphs, you are also supporting a non-profit organization and our community of artists. Below is a selection of prints we’ve picked for the person in your life who loves a variety of things, from nature, to hearts, to cereal.
Nov 26
Screen Printing Trivia
Did you know that…
- The term serigraph is a combination of two ancient languages – the prefix “seri” (Latin for silk) and “graphein” (Greek for write or draw).
- The term “screen printing” is often interchangeable with the terms “serigraphy” and “silkscreening”? It all depends on the the context it is being used – artistic, industrial, or commercial. At the Serie Project, where we create fine art prints, we most commonly use the term “serigraphy.”
- Screen printing is a form of stenciling that first appeared in a recognizable form in China as early as the 8th century AD? Stenciling is a technique for reproducing designs by passing ink or paint over holes cut in cardboard or metal onto the surface to be decorated.
- A group of artists involved in the WPA Federal Art Project, who later formed the National Serigraphic Society, coined the word “serigraphy” in the 1930s to differentiate the artistic application of screen printing from the industrial use of the process? With the influential critic and print curator Carl Zigrosser, Anthony Velonis coined the word “serigraph” to convey the fine art rather than commercial aspect of the process.
Velonis also wrote a book entitled Silk Screen Technique (New York: Creative Crafts Press, 1939) that was used as a “how-to” manual for other poster divisions. He traveled extensively to advise FAP artists on the technique of silkscreening.
Poli Marichal is a Puerto Rican printmaker, painter and filmmaker, living and working in Los Angeles, California. Her works combine expressionism and symbolism, realism and fantasy to create images that convey strong statements about the human condition as well as environmental, social and political issues.
“My goal as an artist is to create suggestive and expressive works that go beyond mere surface and content and take me into the realm of the uncharted,” says Marichal. ” I feel I’m most successful when the work reveals new possibilities I had not anticipated.”
Her work has been exhibited in local Southern California venues, as well as nationally and internationally at The Museum of Modern Art, The Snite Museum at the University of Notre Dame, The Cultural Institute of Baja California, Mexico, The Institute of Puerto Rican Culture in San Juan, Puerto Rico, The Glasgow Print Studio, Scotland, and the Mexican Heritage Plaza Museum.
“Tree-like and organic forms often populate my more personal works,” explains Marichal. “Trees have a deep significance for me. They symbolize our need to be rooted and safe as well as our desire to transcend our limitations and branch out into the cosmos.”
“Sandra C. Fernandez: Teaching by Example”
by Catherine Zinser (from Aether Magazine)
Excerpt from Aether Magazine – Issue Three (Fall/Winter 2012)
Aether is a semi-annual e-magazine that aims to engage collectors, artists, and galleries in conversation about the visual arts in our community and beyond, inspired by the diverse art scene in Austin where new ideas and creativity are abundant.
Sandra C. Fernandez participated in the Serie Project’s Artist in Residence XII (2004-2005) and XV (2007-2008) series. Born in Queens, New York, but growing up in Ecuador, she says, “I have sought to explore the meanings of my own personal history. I grapple in my art with my own past, which included abandonment and exile. But I have also sought to go beyond the merely personal. Intimate narratives of pain, loss, and hope are universal.”
Fernández adds, “They are part of the human experience and surface in all eras and cultural geographies. Issues of abandonment, isolation, sexism, political freedom, war, and dislocation have for millennia haunted the human psyche. Through the exploration of different media I have sought to confront these issues and communicate my understanding to anyone experiencing my work.”
→ Read more
Sam Coronado
Artist, Mentor, and Friend
The Austin Visual Arts Association (AVAA) has announced the recipients of the 2012 awards. The ceremony will take place on Thursday, November 15th, from 6:30 – 9:00 PM, with YNN’s “Arts Minute” Host Carla Stanmyre McDonald as the Master of Ceremonies. In an effort to recognize Austin’s top artists for their achievements in the field, as well as to expand, promote and document Austin’s role as a leading arts destination, AVAA will launch its third awards ceremony to pay tribute to the many noteworthy Austin artists who are making an impact in the community.
There will be a courtyard cocktail reception for artists, patrons and industry leaders with delicious hors d’oeuvres beginning at 6:30, followed by the awards presentation in the AT&T amphitheater. During the ceremony, the winners will be announced by a great mix of Austin art supporters. Presenters include, among others, Robert Faires – Austin Chronicle Arts Editor, Bruce Willenzik – Armadillo Christmas Bazaar Founder, Artist Edward Povey – Winner of the 2010 President’s Award, Arts Commissioner Gloria Mata Pennington, Arts Writer Salvador Castillo, Artist Hank Waddell, AVAA President Donna Crosby and more. A video display of the artworks from current and previous award finalists and winners will be shown throughout the event. The ceremony will be followed by a wonderful array of desserts.
Categories consist of Artists of the Year (2-D, 3-D, Photography, Early Career, New Media), Service Award, Collector’s Circle, President’s Award and Lifetime Achievement. Past honorees include among others, Kelly Fearing, Ken Hale, Edward Povey, Roi James, Mike Chesser, Jade Walker, Robert Dale Anderson, Carlos Rosales-Silva, Beili Liu, Will Klemm, Michael Smith, and Jana Swec, Shea Little, Joseph Phillips for East Austin Studio Tour.
AVAA chose 13 different groups and/or individuals from various segments of the arts community to select the 2012 honorees.
AVAA selected Sam Coronado as the recipient of the 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award. Coronado founded the Serie Project, a non-profit organization in Austin with a mission to create and promote serigraph prints created by Latino artists and others in a workshop environment. Artists from Texas, the United States, and abroad have participated in this project. In conjunction with Coronado Studios, a print shop that produces screen-prints exclusively, the Serie Project administers and produces fine art prints, which travel at exhibition venues around the world.
Tickets for the AVAA Awards Ceremony are $20. Please RSVP to kelli@avaaonline.org if you plan to pay at the door.
I strive for restraint as I feel issues involving science and ethics are most powerful when revealed subtly. I want my message to reveal itself slowly through the viewer’s investigation of form and materials. I hope this project will initiate a dialogue with the ethical issues surrounding the use of genetically modified organisms and be an engaging way of disseminating information on a subject that is little known outside of the sciences.
Jessica Halonen received a MFA in Painting in 1999 from Washington University in Saint Louis and a BA from Kalamazoo College. Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions, notably at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Austin Museum of Art, Park Project, Los Angeles, University of Texas Dallas and San Antonio and Fort Worth Contemporary Arts, TCU. Her work is in the permanent collection at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and The Museum of Southeast Texas.