Macho Menos

June 3, 2015
Macho Menos : Opening Art Reception
Alexander Hernandez/Rob Fatal Curators
SF LGBT Community Center
1800 Market Street @ Octavia
6pm
June 1- July 17 (Visual Art Exhibit)
Free

 

Macho Menos is a Latino queer slang play on the common Spanish phrase “mas o menos” which translates to “more or less”. This slang is used by Gay Latino men to claim their Queerness but to retain their machismo. The Macho Menos exhibition dissects and expands this term in order to examine the larger, complicated connections between queerness and machismo in Latino communities. Since birth Latinos have been taught to think in binary when it comes to gender. We cannot escape the masculine and feminine because the Spanish language is gendered. The featured artists in this art exhibition work with, against, or around gendered expectations of their respective Latino cultures. Their artwork investigates their relationship with “machismo” through the mediums of photography, painting, video, sculpture, textiles, performance and multi media. Their work explores the negotiation of the artist’s gender in relation to their Latino roots.

BIOGRAPHIES

	Senalka McDonald is a Panamanian American self-identified geographer-slash-artist investigating themes of social transgression, identity play, and imagined spaces. Using performative gestures and utterances, she examines the perceived role of an-other,   focusing on the very real trauma of being taught ones “place”. That “place,” embodied physically, lives internally, practically in our subconscious, at the edge of social breakdown. Website: http://www.senalka.com
Hannah Van de Water was born in Miami, Florida, were she grew up consuming pop occult knowledge and shonen animes. Three years ago she moved to Oakland California from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to study Illustration at California College of Arts, she has since graduated with a degree in Painting and still lives and works in Oakland. Hannah’s work initially reflected an interest in character and an implied narrative that was revealed and eclipsed through formal investigations. Recently, she has begun exploring abstract painting and dealing with the ways in which experiences or people can become symbols that haunt with us. Website: http://www.hannahvandewater.com
	Christopher Hinojosa is a Photographer originally from Corpus Christi TX, who is currently pursuing his BFA in photography at The Maryland Institute College of Art. Website: http://www.christopherhinojosa.net
Alexander Hernandez is a Mexican born multimedia artist living in San Francisco. His practice consists of photography, performance and textiles that investigate tactile craft processes in queer communities; moreover how this process is used to unite marginalized people. He has MFA from California college of the Arts and works with at risk youth at Larkin Street Youth Services. Website: http://www.hernalex.com
	Salvador Hernandez (eshcetera; pronounced eh-shh-seh-tuhr-ahh) is a 2nd generation multi-ethnic GenderQueer Los Angeles-based artist educator. A one-time aspiring photojournalist documenting fringe communities around them, eshcetera discovered issues relating to identity playing a major role in their approach to the arts. Queer-identified, second-generation Chicano/a, and GenderQueer-centered observations, narratives and musings fused with Queer theory, gender politics, sexuality, and lived experiences comprise eshcetera collection artworks.Hernandez is a graduate of School of Art at California State University, Long Beach with a dual BFA in Printmaking and BA in Art Education and has also worked for various presenting and fine arts institutions across Southern California.
José Luis Iñiguez is a Central Valley artist currently based in Oakland, California. He received his Master of Fine Arts from California College of the Arts in San Francisco, California. Trained as a ceramist, his practice is not solely ceramics. He infuses his artistic vision with tactile procedures and assemblage. Iñiguez’s work is encircled with many planes of his identity. His recent investigation immersed his practice into a more spiritual quest, weaving in his Roman Catholic upbringing with the occult. Website: http://cargocollective.com/jliniguez
	Jovan Israel is queer artist, illustrator and designer working in Mexico city. He was taught classic art techniques at a young age but then realized he wanted to draw in his own perspective, proportions, figures, creations and essentially his own scribbles. He learned to unlearn, and has developed a child like style of doodling that you would see in a school boy’s notebook. He draws cats, butts, penises, hearts, and pop cultural symbols in inks, watercolors, pastels and acrylic. Website: http://jovan-israel.tumblr.com
Ana Quintanilla was born and raised in South Florida, often traveling as a child to her family home in Nicaragua. She has received a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts from California College of the Arts. In addition to performance, she works in painting, collage, video and most recently, photography. Her work has been included on the cover of Nicaraguan Poetry Magazine, “Flores de la Trinchera- Muestra de la Nueva Narrativa Nicaragüense,” published by Fondo Editorial Soma. Ana has also been featured in art shows around the world, including Nicaragua, Spain, Turkey, Mexico and the US. She is the co-founder of Rubber Dust Collective featuring various video artists and filmmakers living in the East Bay. Her recent book Bathe was on the 2014 short list for Art Books Wanted. Ana lives and works in Berkeley, CA. Website: http://ana5nilla.com
	Rio Yañez is a Bay Area curator, photographer, and graphic artist. As a curator he is a frequent collaborator with his father, Rene Yañez, and the pair have been developing exhibits together since 2005. he has exhibited in cities ranging from San Francisco to Tokyo. His reimaginings of Frida Kahlo have included the Ghetto Frida Project, a series of prints, writings, and performance pieces featuring a thugged-out Kahlo. Yañez is also a founding member of The Great Tortilla Conspiracy, the world’s most dangerous tortilla art collective.
Mev Luna is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in the Bay Area. Luna holds a BFA from California College of the Arts in Textiles & Film. Their works have been exhibited at Artists’ Television Access in San Francisco, The Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston, Tx and The Margulies Collection Warehouse in Miami, FL. Website: http://www.mevluna.com
	Rob Fatal is an Oakland, California-based media artist, filmmaker and media scholar whose work investigates the concepts of narrative, genre, and cinema tropes as they pertain to identity construction and human communication. He uses photo, performance, writing and video to sample and dissect visual and structural cliches from Hollywood films. These snippets of cinema are re-arranged in odd, jarring and perverse manners in an effort to deconstruct and challenge the way societies perceive and consume their various identities and realities. Website: http://robfatal.com