Exhibition: Huellas/Traces

Daphne Art Foundation (Daphne) invites the Laredo community to its newest exhibition Huellas/Traces showcasing the artwork created by the Cultivarte Laredo 2023 Artist-in-Residency Cohort. The exhibition opens during an opening reception on Friday, September 15 at 7 p.m. at Gallery 201, located at 513 San Bernardo Avenue. 

Admission is free. This event is open to all.

Huellas/Traces is a multimedia art exhibition that will feature the artwork created by Laredo artists Alexander Barrón, Allan Gindic, Homero Salazar, and Martha Viera alongside Rio Grande Valley artists Josué Ramírez from McAllen, and Cecilia Sierra and Jesús Treviño from Brownsville.

Working across a variety of styles and media, this mix of up-an-coming and more established artists spent the last few months conduced to the focused production of artwork during two distinct residency programs – V-AiR, a virtual residency, and the Cultivarte Studio Residency (C-Studio), both nontraditional residency programs and the first of their kind in Laredo.

V-AiR and C-Studio residencies commenced with a rigorous application process. Artists were evaluated and selected by a committee composed of artists Mauro Martinez and Juan de Dios Mora, and arts administrator Rosie Santos.

Both residency programs are designed to strengthen the professional and artistic growth of selected artists by giving them time and space to pursue, experiment with, and develop a series of work in conversation with other artists, a supportive mentor, and other creative professionals. The selected artists received stipends, among other resources, for the development of their creative process and artistic practices.

The name of the exhibition Huellas/Traces comes from the observation that Maritza Bautista, residency mentor and Executive Director of Daphne Art Foundation, made while the artists developed their work.

“For me, it was interesting to see how these very different artists’ artwork and ideas were developing through their unique exploration of ‘things passed;’ moments and feelings gone away, faded with time, or brought back to ‘life’ during their respective residencies” Bautista said.

“It wasn’t planned or a theme in any way, but they all developed their ideas from other marks in time. For example, V-AiR Artist Sierra is developing a mixed media installation as a result of her intimate analysis and research of migrant deaths in South Texas – hers is a long-term project; C-Studio Artist Barron is exploring nostalgia by way of spaces and how they transform with time; strangely, so is Salazar (C-Studio) who focused his residency on creating paintings of decaying buildings in downtown Laredo. V-AiR Artist Josué Ramírez continued expanding his work around the Piñata during his residency tenure. All of the artists did this one way or another,” Bautista explained.

The exhibition will include a variety of media including iterations of installation by way of photography and mixed-media, painting, frescos, collage, printmaking, and ceramic work.

About the Artists

Alexander Barrón is a self-taught multi-disciplinary artist and muralist born and raised in Laredo, Texas. He works across oil, acrylic, and spray paints combined with other materials to disrupt traditional artistic perspectives. Barron’s artwork often blends the experiences of having a unique upbringing within one of the subcultures Laredo has to offer. He has exhibited his artwork in several shows. Barron has also produced several murals.

Allan Gindic earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Texas State University with a specialty in Drawing. He has participated in numerous art exhibitions in Austin, Baja California Mexico, and Laredo.

Josué Ramírez is a multi-disciplinary artist living and practicing in Esto’k Gna land, or the Rio Grande Valley, along the Texas-Mexico border. He is inspired by the Rio Grande landscapes, its visual language and everyday practices. He is a Managing Director for Trucha, a multimedia organization and online platform focused on the arts, culture and social movements of the the Lower Rio Grande region. He is a founding member and is responsible for the creative/cultural programming. Ramirez earned a BA in Mexica American Studies with a focus on Public Policy from the University of Texas at Austin. He works through visual art, installation, crafts, and performance. His artwork has been exhibited in the MexicArte Museum, Art League Houston, Craft in America as well in publications like Remezcla and Pitchfork.

Homero Salazar discovered his passion for mark making at an early age. While being mostly self-taught, he pushed his understanding of the fundamentals ranging from medium to medium. Salazar works across watercolor, gouache, dry media, ink, and oil paints, to which he has gathered much information on techniques, artists, and styles.

Cecilia Sierra (b. 1997) is an artist from Brownsville, Texas, she recently completed her bachelors in Studio Art with a minor in marketing from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Sierra explores various themes related to south Texas ecology and nostalgia from growing up in a border community. She expresses these themes through the mediums of relief printmaking, cyanotype, and embroideries combined with found objects. Through Sierra's experience of living in the Rio Grande valley, she’s learned to appreciate and acknowledge the abundance of resources available to her. Such as the nature of the area serving as a unique migrant path through land and water for birds, insects, animals, etc. Sierra has continued to explore various characteristics of her community based on generational trauma, migration, and dynamics. She has been included in in various group exhibits, such as Rockport Rising Eyes of Texas, Rockport, TX (2021), Desde la Frontera, Dock Space Annex, San Antonio, TX (2022), and Quince, Schaudies Gallery, Corpus Christi, TX (2022).

Jesús Treviño (b. 1995, Brownsville, Texas) received a BA in Studio Art from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in 2018 and his MFA in Painting/Drawing at the University of Texas at Austin. His work is rooted from his experience being raised on the U.S./Mexico border and deals with the erasure of history, displacement of people, and its residual personal, emotional, and social effects. He has had three solo exhibitions in Texas at Martha’s Contemporary, Austin (2022) and the Presa House Gallery, San Antonio (2022, 2019) as well as a two- person show at Contra Common, Bee Cave (2021). He has also organized a group exhibition at the Visual Arts Center, Austin, TX (2020) and has been included in group exhibitions at Exhibit/208 in Albuquerque, NM (2022); Las Cruces Museum of Art, NM (2022); the Lawndale Art Center, Houston, TX (2022); The Cole Art Center, Nacogdoches, TX (2021); Field Projects Gallery, New York (2021); Carlsbad Museum and Art Center, NM (2021) and the Rockport Center for the Arts, Rockport, TX (2021). Most recently he attended the Desert Door Residency through Big Medium, Austin, TX (2022); Rockland Residency in Belfair, WA (2022) and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Madison, ME (2022).

Martha Viera was born and raised in Laredo, Texas and lived part of her life in Nuevo Laredo. She began to shoot street photography in 2019 – her subjects being the streets and denizens of Laredo and the surrounding areas. Viera has used this backdrop to fuel her passion for artistic expression through photography. Her initial motivation was to capture candid moments of people and places around town. She is a self-taught photographer who has been experimenting with different styles and techniques. Viera graduated from The University of Texas at San Antonio in 2020 with a bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice and a minor in Sociology.

About Cultivarte Laredo

Cultivarte Laredo is a program of Daphne Art Foundation. It fosters community for artists by creating spaces to cultivate ideas, re-imagine artist spaces, and transform the Laredo community through art.

Daphne Art Foundation is a nonprofit arts organization with a mission to advance the visual, performing and media arts in the Laredo border region by: providing residencies to artists and creatives, exhibiting and promoting artists, and cultivating arts appreciation and participation.

Huellas/Traces will be on view at Gallery 201, located at 513 San Bernardo Ave. in Laredo, Texas, from September 15 through October 6, 2023.