Latino in Tulsa – a bi-Cultural experience

Tulsa artist Tomas Baldonado curates an exhibit entitled “Latino in Tulsa” at Living Arts next First Friday. Baldonado will craft an exhibit freed from tradition’s confines and expectation. This show will explore the myriad voices and bi-cultural identity of Tulsa’s Latino artists. The work presented gives voice to artists from many different Latin America countries.

“The concept of the exhibit is to show the community that there is a large diversity within the Latino population in Tulsa,” said Baldonado, whose first curating venture in Tulsa was the 2013 Chicano/Latino Art and Cultural Exhibition at Liggett Studios. He said he hopes the exhibit will help Latinos to “gain a stronger sense of identity and their place in Tulsa. There has been a lot of segregation and separation in the community and this is an opportunity to bridge that gap with ‘Latino in Tulsa’.”

Concurrent Living Arts presents “Occupied” Narciso Arguelles, an artist from Oklahoma City. This installation includes mixed media and explores the “American dream” juxtaposed with issues of “access,” “citizenship,” “borders,” and “Identity” in Oklahoma. The title, Arguelles explained, comes from the Occupy movement. “The first time I heard the term, I thought, “We already live in an Occupied state,” he said. “Historically this land belonged to the Native Americans and currently a select few determine who has access to the so-called American dream.” The goal is to document the invisible, the “occupied” in Oklahoma.

Arguelles art has been exhibited around the world including Artspace at Untitled Gallery; Intar Gallery, NYC; the Ninth Biennale of Sydney Australia; and the First Johannesburg Biennale in South Africa. He teaches photography, drawing, 2-D, and art history/appreciation at Oklahoma City Community College.

In addition to the visual work on First Friday, Margarita Vega-Treviño will recite her poetry at 5:45pm and Cristiana Prado, Winston Peraza, Juan Miret and Baldonado will participate in an ArtTalk at 6:00pm.

Adding to First Friday’s festivities, Tulsa Latino Theatre Company makes its debut at Living Arts. Shadia Dalhal will present excerpts from her production “Real Women Have Curves” by Josefina López at6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. in the Corner Installation Space. With encouragement from Living Arts, Shadia formed the Tulsa Latino Theater Company – the first non-profit theater company run by Latinos in Tulsa. And this production will premiere at Living Arts in June as part of the Performing Arts Center Trust’s Summer Stage/Fringe Festival.

 The artists participating in “Latino in Tulsa” are:

• Christina Prado, originally from Brazil, uses layers of glazes in her ceramics to create unique palettes.
   
• José Antonio Pantoja Hernández defected from Cuba. His paintings present a surreal vision of every day life in Cuba.
   
• Juan Miret, originally from Venezuela, captures the faces of an ever-changing population with his photographs of Latino Tulsa.
   
• Margarita Vega-Treviño will present her poetry with photographs by Francisco Treviño.
   
• Rodolfo Sosa Cordero Camacho, originally from Mexico, takes an intimate look at his Tulsa experience through his photographs.
   
• M. Teresa Valero, a native of Venezuela, is an Applied Professor of Art, Graphic Design at The University of Tulsa who creates dreamscapes representations of the cityscape.
   
• Winston Peraza is a multilingual visual artist and graphic designer born in Caracas, Venezuela who recently became an American citizen with experience in a wide range of design.
   
• While he started with wood sculpture, Baldonado has moved into metal fabrication and his vision can be seen in his latest series of Lowrider Bicycles. It is Baldonado’s mission to not only display his art, but to expose the world to the various dimensions of the Chicano, Latino experience.

"Art is the best communicator and bridge unification in a society, and because the beauty in art is that there is no concern for your skin color, language, or where you come from,” Baldonado said. “Tulsa will be a wonderful showcase for the beautiful and rich teaching of our culture.”

“Latino in Tulsa” and “Occupied” are made possible through the generosity of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the George Kaiser Family Foundation.

The Gayly – May 3, 2014 @ 10:50am