The word ‘Chicano(a)’ was first used as a derogatory term used towards lower income Mexicans living in the United States. Though originally used as a classist and racist slur, by the 1940’s, Chicano was being reclaimed as a term of pride by Mexican Americans who have a non-Anglo self-image. The title of this exhibit, Borderline: Chicano Voices Speak, was intentionally chosen to engage those very discussions – racism, division, identity and cultural pride.

Borderline: Chicano Voices Speak will feature the voices of Mexican, Mexican-American, and Latino(a) artists whose work also expresses the immigrant experience. The word “borderline” also relates to multiple aspects of this exhibit – a physical division of countries, a social separation of cultural groups, and a psychic division of identities producing the ‘othering’ of people.

This exhibit will feature Juan Fuentes, Carlos Barberena, Celeste de Luna, J. Leigh Garcia, Frank Estrada, Diego Marical Rios, Eugene Rodriguez, Fernando Marti, and Raoul Deal.
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Hours: Tuesday-Friday 9am-5pm; Saturday 10am-5 pm
Admission: $5 for adults, $3 for students, Free for TVAA members

La Biennale internationale d’estampe contemporaine de Trois-Rivières (BIECTR) tient à féliciter tous les récipiendaires des prix décernés aux artistes pour la qualité de leurs œuvres et leur démarche lors de la cérémonie d’ouverture de sa 13e édition le 17 juin 2023.
Les récipiendaires :

• Grand prix de la 13e BIECTR : Cassandre Boucher – Canada (Québec)
• 2e prix de la 13e BIECTR : Carlos Barberena – Nicaragua / États-Unis
• Prix Télé-Québec : Hélène Latulippe – Canada (Québec)
• Prix Loto-Québec artiste émergent du Québec : Cathy Bélanger – Canada (Québec)
• Prix UQTR artiste de la relève du Québec : Michelle LaSalle – Canada (Québec)
• Prix Invitation Presse Papier : Ariane Fruit – France

Mentions honorables :

• Olesya Dzhurayeva – Ukraine
• Cynthia Back – Portugal
• Carmen Isasi – Espagne

Source : BIECTR

Barberena Statement
"I create to counteract great silences, demystifying “foreign” experience, bridging the distances and bringing awareness to the ways our lives are intimately connected through the lens of justice. Closest to me are ways migrants’ humanity—our memories, attachments, relationships and traumas— is swept aside leaving visible only our work value. In these prints, I honor the farmworkers, most undocumented, whom the US population & Federal government labeled “Essential” in the context of COVID, a so-called honor for their centrality to the food system, while doing little to alleviate their lack of basic rights and vulnerability to exploitation and imminent deportation".

This print is to raise awareness about the humanitarian catastrophe that the Yanomami indigenous people are suffering, largely due to the disastrous effect of illegal gold mining that has displaced them, brought diseases, child malnutrition, destroyed the land and contaminated the rivers with mercury and poisoning the Yanomami people. Mercury is used for gold mining to extract gold, over 90% of the Yanomami people have higher levels of mercury than the World Health Organization recommends.

Carlos Barberena at La Onda Gráfica in Houston, Texas
Video by Christian Riquelme kabta.co

PRINT DETAILS:
FORA GARIMPO! 24" x 18". Relief Print, Letterpress & Screen Print on French paper. Signed by Carlos Barberena. Numbered Edition of 100. Published by La Onda Gráfica, Houston. TX. 2023

In these times of unprecedented information consumption, it’s easy to lose sight of our humanity.

Too often, critical discourse in our communities about how we treat each other gets swept up in whatever “hot button” topic is overwhelming our daily lives. We then lose the ability to see, think and listen clearly. It’s as if all the “informational noise” in the world takes away our ability to empathize with one another.

Art, in all its forms, can offer mental and emotional space so people can digest and think about what the artist is working to relate — perhaps simply because of the physical presence of the artwork in a space.  A person who has chosen to engage with an exhibition has the opportunity to contemplate beyond what we all get to see on our myriad screens.

The “Mark of Empowerment”exhibition has been presented as part of the 2022 Mid America Print Council Biennial Conference “Power of Print” hosted in mid-October by the Kent State University School of Art in partnership with the University of Akron, Cleveland Institute of Art, Zygote Press and The Morgan Conservatory.

Curated by Roberto Torres Mata, this exhibition “reflects on how printmaking takes action to speak out with activism. The work challenges racism, sexism, environmental injustice, social inequalities, infringement upon civil rights, and colonialism.”
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The strength of the exhibition is in the beauty and skill of the artwork, along with the subjects of the artists. The Emily Davis Gallery at the University of Akron is full of expressive, colorful, deeply important and thoughtful works that can quite simply take your breath away as you walk through the galleries.

“Burnt Water, A Prophetic History of California” by Los Angeles-based artist Israel Campos is certainly one of the standout works in the exhibit.

Presented like a Mayan codex, the work is full of brightly colored illustrations that also pay homage to the Maya in the illustrative style of the artist and in how the work folds out like an accordion.

While it’s not necessarily easy to understand all that is being told in the piece, the fact that we are looking at a detailed work made to look like a Mayan codex is an active commentary in itself, because very little of the Mayan language survived as the Spanish burned the majority of their writing. 
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In “Burnt Water,” Campos utilizes earth tone colors in the background of all the images, contrasting with bright colors for most of the subjects depicted in the overall story to help make the imagery stand out.
The artist's style helps to pull your eye through the length of the piece and keeps you engaged and wanting to look at it more.

“Survivance Series 11 and 12” are two haunting works by artist Monty Little. Little is Diné (Navajo) and from Tuba City, Arizona. He is also a former U.S. Marine.

In these prints, a central image has been obscured by overlaid images of water and black crosses or plus signs that are repeated throughout both works. There are cultural references here, as the cross pattern is a traditional Navajo pattern and water plays a significant role in Navajo culture.
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Little’s work relates what feels like deeply personal experiences. The obstructed view of each subject gives a sense of a cloudy history or even an erased history. It’s as if the artist is trying to help us see but can’t bring things into complete focus because it is no longer possible.

A series of four dynamic chine-collé etchings by Dakota Mace titled “The Way Things Are” helps bring voice to the artist's subject. Each etching features the same image of an elderly person sitting in front of a wall with text written on it. The work on the far left is as detailed as a photograph. As you move from left to right, each portrait becomes less detailed though the writing remains legible. 
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These works are offset by a wall that is painted orange. This may seem like a trivial addition, however, it helps pull your attention to the work and around the part of the gallery the work is exhibited in.

Some of the most powerful pieces in this exhibit are a series of prints on handmade bags by artist Carlos Barberena. 

“No Human is Illegal,” features an image of a migrant worker carrying potatoes in a 5-gallon bucket. The image has a patterned background and is surrounded in a rococo-style frame with the title of the work written on a scroll going across the bottom. The entire composition is on what looks like a shopping bag.

This is a fairly obvious commentary about capitalism, wealth and the ways in which we maintain our economy, and our politics. An illustrated image like this challenges our notion of who these workers are and helps humanize the subject. 

​“Mark of Empowerment” does more than give visitors a “moment” to ponder reality through what might be an unfamiliar lens. It also gives a voice to people who are too often drowned out through our more conventional means of obtaining information.
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The importance of visual arts' ability to communicate and as at the curator states “challenge the status quo, preventing inequities in systems and rejecting establishments,” in exhibitions like this one cannot be overstated.

Exhibit: Mark of Empowerment
Where: Emily Davis Gallery, University of Akron
When: Through Dec. 20
Hours: Monday–Friday 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
More information: 330-972-6030 or uakron.edu/art/galleries

(Posted on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022)
The Department of Art + Design, with support from The Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts, is pleased to welcome celebrated printmaker Carlos Barberena to kick off the 2022-23 CECA Visiting Artist Speaker Series season.

“This marks the sixth year that I have been at the helm of the Visiting Artist Speaker SeriesCommittee,” said Michael Dickins. “And this year is just as exciting as the others. It is an honor to be able to bring world-class artists to Clarksville on a regular basis. We’re kicking off this season with Carlos Barberena, a contemporary Nicaraguan printmaker known for his relief prints and his use of images from pop culture, as well as from political and cultural tragedies.”

Barberena’s lecture will be at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 18, in Heydel Hall (Room 120 of the Art + Design building). The lecture is free and open to the public.
He’ll also work with Austin Peay students during his visit to create new pieces.
“During Barberena’s visit, he will be working with our printmaking professor, Patrick Vincent, and some of our students to create a new print edition of his work,” Dickins said. “One of the pieces in the edition will be donated to APSU’s Art Collection. This will increase our collection of contemporary prints that we’ve been building over the past few years. Two of the pieces will be donated to CECA to go toward fundraising initiatives, so it’s possible that a community member will not only support CECA and its programming but also own an original work by Carlos Barberena.”

Counteracting silence in the face of repression
Barberena’s work consistently reflects on the cycles of repression and resistance and its relationship to the diaspora in which he has lived, throughout dictatorship, revolution, erasure, renewal, hope and repression. In his prints, he centers such life experiences occurring far beyond his country. At times he evokes them with satirical images, at others, through the mundane, unseen things people carry, such as memories, attachments, relationships and traumas.
He creates to counteract the great silence in the face of repression occurring globally, believing we are all intimately connected to it. He looks to demystify the “foreign” experience, to bridge the distances that life across any border or wall produces, but also, the difference in the content of these experiences. Barberena creates to bring awareness to the interconnectedness among them, focusing on the struggle for social, political, economic and environmental justice.

He has received various awards, most notably The Elizabeth Catlett Memorial Award, 2021 MAPC Juried Exhibition, University of Iowa; DNSPE Purchase Award 2022, Bradbury Art Museum, Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, Arkansas; Second Prize, Ninth Annual Art Competition at the Bridgeport Art Center, Chicago; SPARK Grant Award, Chicago Artist Coalition and the Joyce Foundation; Cross Currents: Intercambio Cultural, Chicago-Havana, 2017-2019, MacArthur Foundation International Connections; National Printmaking Award 2012 given by the Nicaraguan Institute of Culture in Managua, Nicaragua; Parchemin d’Honneur, 8 Triennale Mondial de l’Estampe et de la Gravure Originale, AMAC, Chamalieres, Auvergne, France; Revueltas Award for Visual Arts 2019, Pilsen Fest, Chicago; and the award-poster for the Ecology and Human Rights in Banana Plantations in Costa Rica, given by GEBANA in Berlin, Germany.

Barberena, who lives in Chicago, has artwork in many public and private collections. For more on Barberena and his work, visit his website or follow him on Instagram @barberena.
For more on this lecture, contact Dickins at dickinsm@apsu.edu. For future CECA Visiting Artist Speaker Series events, visit www.apsu.edu/art-design/exhibitions-speakers/visiting-artists.
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All events are free and open to the public. All ages are welcome.

OPENING RECEPTION: THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 5:00PM - ​
BRADBURY ART MUSEUM, ARKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY, JONESBORO, AR
​Open to Public: FEBRUARY 17 - MARCH 30, 2022

Founded in 1996 by Evan Lindquist, the Delta National Small Prints Exhibition has received great acclaim as it has grown to be one of the country’s foremost annual competitions for prints.

The Delta National Small Prints Exhibition was created with students in mind. It is meant to be a resource for printmaking students and instructors to view and assess contemporary standards of printmaking as they develop over time. This creates an environment for learning opportunities and creative thinking, promoting new ideas which stretch the limits of the medium. In addition, it is an outreach program which serves as a resource for the region, bringing attention to printmaking as a medium but also sharing the variety of stories told by each individual piece.

There are few restrictions to the eligibility of this renowned print competition. Photographs are allowed in addition to prints as a means of giving the image priority over the technique. Unusual approaches are encouraged - unique impressions and digital imagery that are historically excluded from print exhibitions. This allows and encourages artists to push the limits of printmaking and creatively express themselves in new and revolutionary ways.

The range of images shown in DNSPE represents the spectrum of contemporary printmaking. Many artists work with traditional materials that require meticulous precision such as wood and metal engravings. On the opposite side of the print spectrum, the digital and technological influence of photographic processes and digitized images presents itself more each year.

Each year, a juror reviews all submissions and selects which ones will be exhibited. The juror for DNSPE 2022 will be Miranda Metcalf, the founder and host of Hello, Print Friend – a contemporary printmaking podcast. With an archive of over 100 episodes with artists and print advocates from over 20 countries on 6 continents, Hello, Print Friend is the most extensive archive of interviews from the print world on the internet. Miranda planted the seeds for her love of printmaking with five years as director of Davidson Galleries in Seattle, Washington, before moving to Sydney, Australia, and working with Cicada Press.

All jurors seem to agree on one fact, that the selection process is very difficult. Looking at hundreds of prints and narrowing the selection down to 55-60 in a few days is no subtle undertaking. Jurors continuously comment on the wide variety of techniques and imagery from both emerging and established artists who create an overview of what is happening technically and conceptually across the nation.

The original concept of DNSPE was developed around a dream to make Jonesboro, Arkansas an epicenter for art and culture. This has proven true in the growth of our significant collection of contemporary prints from around the world. As part of the exhibition, BAM strives to give back to the artists who contribute to this exemplary exhibition by purchasing a large portion of the show to add to their permanent collection, but it would not be possible without the support of the amazing group of community members who provide purchase prizes and exhibition support each year.
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Viewing hours are Tue-Sat 12PM-5PM. For more information about Bradbury Art Museum or to learn how you can support future exhibitions, please call (870) 972-3687.