The Center for Latino Arts and Culture has launched an ambitious effort to establish a Student Scholarship program that will support Latino and other minority students pursuing arts and cultural studies at Rutgers.

Inaugurated this year during our 15th Anniversary Gala program on November 10, 2007, the program is seeking donations during the fall 2007 and spring 2008 in order to build a $25,000 endowment for the scholarship. We are happy to report that we have already raised $8,725 towards our goal!

There are two ways to contribute to the scholarship fund:

1. You can simply write a check to the Rutgers Foundation with your contact information and mail it to us with the attached donation form.

2. The Center has developed an online Art Auction (see below) that features the original work of visual artists who have collaborated with the CLAC over the years. Your are welcome to make a bid on the artwork through March 31, 2008. Winning bids will be contacted by April 14, 2008.

All gifts are tax deductible as permitted by law.

To learn more about the art auction and the bidding process, please read the Conditions of Sale.

We are currently accepting written or phone bids. To submit a bid, please fill out the Bid Form and return to the CLAC by Monday, March 31 at 5pm. You will receive confirmation that your bid has been received. To submit a phone bid, please contact Carlos Fernandez, CLAC Director, at 732-932-1263.

Mariana Maldonado
Maria Mijares
Claudio Mir
Julio Nazario
Julio Cesar Ortiz
Raphael Montañez Ortiz
Mariam Romais
Juan Sanchez
Yilis del C. Suriel
Raúl Villarreal
Karin Weyland

Olga Bautista
Hand-made piece, 2002
Ceramic vase
14” x 6”
Minimum bid: $120 (SOLD)

"I was drawn by the curves in beehives and my love for pre-Columbian art. I develop sculptural forms that go beyond what I was exploring in nature. I believe that my talent lies in contextualizing geometric forms with organic ones. In an attempt to provide a vessel of quiet beauty to the senses, I have focused on creating primitive shapes and colors in order to find the right tone combinations and designs appropriated for my work."

Olga Mercedes Bautista is known by her sculpture made in series using ceramic, bronze and other plastic materials. She holds a masters degree in art education and is the director of the Perth Amboy Gallery. Her work has been exhibited at the Morris Museum, Mason Gross Gallery, Kenkeleba Gallery in New York, Broadway Gallery and other venues.

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"The imagery evokes a range of symbolic themes, and employs a new vocabulary of classical and urban origin. The empowerment of the spiritual and emotional evolves from the act of their own creation and defines a distinctive quality. Complex currents and modes of artistic expression that results in a rich interplay of visual characterize the multicultural composition and conjures a signature style, unique to RODRIGUEZ CALERO."

RODRIGUEZ CALERO was born in Puerto Rico, raised in New York, and for the past 18 years she has worked and resided in New Jersey. She first studied graphics at the Institute of Culture’s, School of Fine Arts, in Puerto Rico with Master Printer, Lorenzo Homar and continued her studies at the Art Students League of New York where her main focus was in painting and collage under the tutelage of Master Artist, Leo Manso. While at the League, she received various awards and scholarships and was the recipient of the prestigious McDowell Traveling Scholarship. She continued her career abroad while living in Spain and France. Upon her return to New York, she was the recipient, for two consecutive years, of fellowships at the Provincetown Art Association.

Rodriguez Calero developed and created a style in painting, ACROLLAGE, which is uniquely distinct and innovative, not only technically, but also in the scope of her subject matter and the depth of her vision. The artist successfully combines her knowledge of mediums, evolving them into another dimension of quality and visual sensibility and expression, which in turn produces a striking and thought provoking impression.

Rodriguez Calero, has received other awards and honors, and is a recipient of fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She has been given residencies by the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has exhibited in galleries and museums across the nation and the Caribbean. Her works are in many private and public collections. In 2005, RODRIGUEZ CALERO, was chosen with six other artists, to represent, both Nationally and Internationally, the Liquitex Company, developers of acrylic paint and mediums, in celebration of their 50th Anniversary. In 2006, she was featured in New Jersey Networks Public Television State of the Arts Series, “SIGN OF THE TIMES”, and in 2007 it received a New York Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Arts Program.

Her works can be viewed on the following sites:

www.rodriguezcalero.com
www.artonline.net/rodriguezcalero
www.liquitex.com/awardprograms/aotm/0402calero/artist.cfm

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"I, through my art, fill my doubts in search for my answers from an emotional point of view. I try to find the thread, or umbilical cord, that unite us all since the beginning of our existence."

Monica S. Camin, born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, currently resides in Monmouth County, NJ. She received her formal training at the Paula A. Sarmiento Art Academy in Olivos, Argentina (1967) and Manuel Belgrano Art University, Bs. As., Argentina (1971). She continued her education at the Arts Students League, New York, NY (1985-87) and studied sculptor under Chaim Gross at the New School, New York, NY (1987). Select notable solo exhibitions include Series of Letters, Perth Amboy Gallery Center for the Arts, Perth Amboy, NJ (2004); Sculptures & Paintings, San Martín Cultural Center, Bs.As., Argentina; Monica S. Camin: Painting & Sculpture, Jadite Galleries, New York, NY (1989); and Pindar Gallery, New York, NY (1988). Camin has participated in numerous group shows including Monmouth County Arts Council Annual Juried Art Show, Monmouth Museum (2007,2006, 2003, 2002); Shelters, Mary Lou Zeek Gallery, Salem, OR; Art 4 Business Inc, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Philadelphia, PA (2007); Elliot Museum, Martin County, FL; James Howe Gallery, Kane University, Union, NJ (2005); Transcultural New Jersey: Four Visions, Bergen Museum, Bergen, NJ; Celebrating the Culture and Heritage of the Andes, Perth Amboy Gallery Center for the Arts, Perth Amboy, NJ (2004); and The Visual Imaginary of Latinos/as in New Jersey, Mason Gross School of the Arts Galleries, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ and Kenkeleba Gallery, New York, NY (2002) among others.

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"This print follows the same theme I have been exploring in my paintings and drawings for past two years; Puerto Rico, its people, its colonial status and its geography. Also In my work I started introducing text taken from the island colloquialism, or phrases from different songs, either from boleros (romantic ballads) and guarachas (popular songs and dances). In this print by playing off a popular song against a social reality in Puerto Rico, such as its current territorial status, which is an ambiguous and jumbled commonwealth system, I try to contextualize issues such as politics, economics, and stereotyping (tropicalisms)."

"Preciosa, which means precious in English, is the title of a Puerto Rican song, composed by our own Rafael Hernandez. This song talks about the enchantments of the island, and its people, regardless of its colonial status, and/or its political struggles. The background in the print comes from a collage I made with pictures of a cemetery, and El Morro Castle in Old San Juan taken in one of my trips to the island. The composition is divided in half: one half reflects a golden island, and the other half the ruins of a culture. These two sides could be read as a barrier defining oppositions, or marking a transition between variants, and ideologies. The symbols and the images are there to evoke a dialogue, and hopefully add new insight about Puerto Rican culture."

José Camacho was born and raised in Puerto Rico. Mr. Camacho enrolled the department of communication at the University Sagrado Corazón in 1985. Encouraged in his artistic interest by his teachers he began to study painting and drawing at the Art League in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. In 1987, at the age of 19, he moved to New Jersey, and enrolled Montclair State College. He studied drawing and painting with Miriam Beerman. While in college Camacho assisted Puerto Rican artist Antonio Martorell at the installation of La Casa de Todos Nosotros at El Museo Del Barrio in New York City, and also at the installation of El Zocalo del Silencio at the university of Puerto Rico. Mr. Camacho received a Bachelor of Art degree from Montclair State University in 1992. All through college, in order to earn a living, Camacho worked in different galleries and frame shops. Ever since Mr. Camacho has been exhibiting his paintings in New Jersey and New York City. Currently he is the director of Midland Gallery.

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"My first images were made on clean, smooth white surfaces of preface pages of my parents’ hard-bound books. Some have been retrieved and appear in “A Child’s Garden of Versus”, a non-autobiographical edition (100) of artist stamps. As a multi-media artist whose concepts are Dada-based, my art is often wrought with beaucoup entente taking me through performances, installations, painting, mailart and bookmaking. Predictably, this stamp sheet appears again in an expanded version, a book with the same title. Although I employ many diverse techniques of expression, both book- and stamp-making are the most satisfying as the process provides me with an incomparable venue for my sense of humor, abundant verbiage and the endless need to produce."

Jo-Anne Echevarría Myers was Born in New York City to two artist parents. She has always lived on an island except for the years when she attended Syracuse University and Philadelphia College of Art. Thereafter, she launched a 35-year exploration of provocative possibilities focusing on critical social and political issues. Her books are in numerous collections including The Whitney Museum of Art Library, The Museum of Modern Art Library, Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester and the National Museum for Women in the Arts.

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Diana Gonzalez Gandolfi has been exhibiting her work in one-person and group exhibitions both in museums and galleries throughout the United States since 1978. A painter and printmaker, she is currently represented by the Simon Gallery in Morristown, NJ and Cervini Haas/Gallery Materia in Scottsdale, AZ. Her work is in numerous private, public and corporate collections, including The Hunterdon Museum of Art, The Noyes Museum, The Jersey City Museum, The Montclair Art Museum, Johnson & Johnson Corporation, Rutgers University, IBM, Fidelity Management Corporation, NJ Department of Treasury, the Bank of Boston, and the Newark Public Library.

She has received awards, fellowships and residencies from various institutions, including two Boston Museum of Fine Arts Traveling Fellowships, a New Jersey State Council on the Arts Distinguished Artist Award and Fellowship for Printmaking, three New Jersey State Council on the Arts Painting Fellowships, a Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper Fellowship and a Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Residency Grant to the Vermont Studio Center.

Throughout the past thirty five years, she has taught visual arts at Curry College, The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, The Massachusetts Prison Art Project, Art To People, The Printmaking Council of NJ, Artworks, and other community programs in Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey.

A native of Argentina, she trained as an artist in the United States and holds a BFA degree from Tufts University, a Diploma and Fifth Year Graduate Certificate in Fine Arts from the Boston Museum School and an M Ed in Art Therapy from The Institute for the Arts and Human Development at Lesley University.

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"My paintings are full of passionate colors and interesting forms. I work to create a consistent look throughout the work, uniting figurative and abstract elements. The overall effect is unique because of the brilliancy of colors and the deceptively clear composition of the art. It is the type of art that forms a bond with the viewer because of its immediacy and multiplicity, which enables the viewer to read it in different ways: one can appreciate the expansive color application or to read them as philosophical statements about life and love. I work to give my paintings a powerful presence, creating strong sentiments, often through metaphoric images."

Humberto Guanipa was born in Venezuela. Upon joining in the Venezuelan Air Force in 1973, he studied mechanical, technical and architectural drawing. This led to art studies in Porlamor, Margarita Island, followed by three years at the Arturo Michelena School of Fine Arts in Valencia, Venezuela. He relocated to New York during the 1980s. Since then, Mr. Guanipa has exhibited his art in solo and group shows in galleries, museums, universities and libraries in Venezuela, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York City. He now works in his studio in Linden, New Jersey.

Artist Website: http://www.fearonlovetoart.com/index.php

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As a young artist in Mexico City, Noé Hernández studied fine arts under Jaime Amado, a well-known Mexican Artist, including drawing, oil painting, and pastel. He immigrated to the United States in 1989 and experienced first-hand the challenges of being a Latino immigrant in the U.S. Through community involvement, he became acquainted with the immigrant community and the Chicano artistic movement in Los Angeles and San Francisco. He moved to New York City in 1991 and immersed himself in the diverse artistic communities in the city. His work has been exhibited in Los Angeles, New York, New Brunswick (NJ), Newark (NJ), New Haven (CT), Chicago, Mexico City, Paris, and Cape Town, South Africa.

Some of his recent endeavors include a commission in 2001 for the Policy Project in South Africa by the United States Agency for International Development to design a painting depicting the role that global faith communities play in the fight against HIV/AIDS . Also in the same year, He was commissioned by La Nueva Esperanza in Washington DC, to teach different drawing and painting techniques to a diverse group of Latino/a teenagers, to use art as a tool to reinforce their cultural identity. In 2004, he was commissioned by the Fundación Segundo Montes and La Nueva Esperanza to do a mural and give workshops to a group of adolescents in El Salvador about the revolution.

He currently lives in Ridgeway, Virginia.

Artist Website: http://www.gratisweb.com/noe/hernandez.html

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“Hoyos’s compositions are visionary journeys depicting fragmented figures in metaphysical spaces in luminous colors that enhance their rarefied, dreamlike imagery. The addition of organic material such as leaves, in some of her smaller mixed media works, adds to the poetry that makes Cristina Hoyos an appealing and compelling painter of personal dreamscapes.”—Andrew Loomis, Gallery and Studio Magazine, Sept-Oct 2001.

Originally from Colombia, Cristina Hoyos is a postmodern Surrealist who explores the theme of the witnessing through the ubiquitous image of a mysterious eye that appears in many of her paintings, collages and drawings. Since 2001, her work has been exhibited at the Montserrat Gallery and the Colombian Consulate in New York City, as well as the Edison Art Society, Perth Amboy Gallery, and Middlesex County College in New Jersey.

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"My artistic horizons were defined from the start of my vocation. I knew from very early on that I did not want to be an artist whose paintings are used only to adorn or fill empty, tedious or unsophisticated space. Through painting, I have been able to find myself and communicate in spiritual form with others."

"Terencio's phrase, “I am a man, and nothing that concerns a man do I deem a matter of indifference to me" expresses my basic existential preoccupation. In a world of constant convulsions, I have a human commitment to document what I see and feel. This puts no subject matter off limits to me. Pain, loneliness, anger, injustice & hope have often motivated me to face a blank canvass. My spirit reacts, twists, reflects, and finishes doing the essential: expressing itself with vigor onto the canvas."

"I have a commitment to humanity from which arises the subject of all my paintings. I map out for the casual and often unsuspecting observer a spiritual awakening or transcendence that might normally be overlooked or go unnoticed. As an artist it is my intention is to provoke. I watch closely for the viewer’s reflection, surprise, question and ultimately understanding."

Ezequiel Jiménez, artist and cultural activist, was raised in the city of Santiago de los Caballeros in the Dominican Republic. Jimenez began painting at the age of 12, finding in art a mode of self-expression that was free of the censorship of conventional thought and opinion. In 1986, he entered the School of Architecture at the Universidad Tecnológica de Santiago (UTESA) and, soon afterwards, studied painting with Rosidalia García at the Casa de Arte in Santiago, and later with the abstract expressionist painter Jose Baez Ferr. From 1987 to 1989, Jimenez directed graphic arts and stage design at the Centro Cultural de Santiago and served as a consultant to the fine arts department. In 1993, he moved to New York City where he attended the Art Students League of New York. A major figure of the “Caribbean Baroque” school, his art wrestles with the fundamental conflicts of the human spirit. For Jimenez, art and the artist are embedded in everyday life: in the suffering, aspirations and triumphs of humankind. Art provokes, nourishes and stretches the imagination, revealing the landscape of human possibility. Jimenez is a founding member and the president of the Union of Dominican Visual Artists, based in New York City. His art is widely reviewed in New York and DR art press. Since 1987, Jimenez’ work has been included in 39 group exhibitions.

Artist Website: http://www.ejimenezart.net/index.html

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As an American of Cuban -Chinese descent, Lau’s cultural background and familial separation instilled in her at an early age the paramount importance of cultural preservation. Her artwork and vision are often an exploration in identity and a reflection of her multicultural heritage. Her most notable works concerning Cuba is an authentic fusion of visual styles and mediums that form a narrative of her personal history. She views the Cuba series as a long-term documentary project, originally inspired with the ideal of documenting a Cuban lifestyle she could not be a part of as a child, but often dreamt of.

Ms. Lau’s work can be found in permanent and private collections nationwide.

www.marialau.com

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"In my Still Life Abstractions, I am fascinated with the nature of line and the emotional element of color. In these paintings, I incorporate what appear to be recognizable still life elements that seem to appear and intertwine between foreground and background. I like to play with the lyrical elements of line, form, color and balance to arrive at a composition that conveys simplicity and complexity intertwined. "

"My paintings play with the idea of reality as a dream or subconscious memory that is not always defined but a metaphor for what we wish it might be. Lines and colors cross boundaries creating intimate relationships of harmony. However, as intimate as the relationships appear to be, each element has an individuality of presence that unifies and strengths the overall effect of the painting much the way each instrument in an orchestra is vital to the totality of a musical composition."

"My work is influenced by the cubist paintings of Picasso, the minimal paintings of Parisian artist Mondrian, the color-fields of Rothko and the line work of Cuban artist Amelia Paláez. It is the energy and imagination of these master painters that fuels my creativity. Through my art, I try to challenge the viewer to see more, question more, imagine more."

Mariana Maldonado was born in Quito, Ecuador, spent her childhood in New York City and has resided in the Ramsey/Mahwah area of New Jersey for over 25 years. Her passion for painting started in childhood and continues to this day. As an adult, Ms. Maldonado attended various universities focusing on Art History and experimented with various artistic disciplines including: painting, sculpture ceramic, and mixed media collage. She selected painting as her medium of choice and turned her love of painting into a professional career in 1989. Since then, Ms. Maldonado has been considered an accomplished and prolific painter. She participates in various galleries and exhibits in numerous juried exhibitions both in the tri-state area and in her native Ecuador. Ms. Maldonado’s artwork is in the permanent collections of the William Paterson University and the International Center of Art & Poetry, Quito, Ecuador, as well as in numerous private collections in both the US and in South America.

Artist Website: http://www.artvue.com

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"On Thanksgiving Day 1976 “THE BAND” held their final concert in San Francisco where they had begun sixteen years before. My friend Vicki and I were able to watch rehearsals with the greats of rock and roll in an empty Winterland Theater the day before the show was filmed by Martin Scorsese. Two years after, The Last Waltz was showing in a Paris cinema, offering respite from site-seeing, and ‘bringing it all back home.’ The painting, completed in 1981, was a personal souvenir of a souvenir."

"Looking for beauty, I find it equally among the ordinary, because I know that every random moment contains all the elements for perfect harmony. I transform reality like Don Quixote. With paint I savor and preserve existing wonder."

A Rutgers graduate, Maria Mijares has produced contemporary realist paintings that have been awarded two Painting Fellowships from the NJ State Council on the Arts, and other awards. Her work has been exhibited nationally and abroad in museum, university, corporate and alternative galleries. Mijares created four large-scale porcelain enamel murals recently installed at street-level in the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail Transit System at the Union City Bergenline Avenue Station, featuring a clock tower marquee and 3 large murals.

"Maria Mijares is a supreme individualist living a life of art as she alone conceives it. When she appears in one of her own paintings, it is as a stark silhouette slouched against the wall...But when she works it is the straight-edged, cutting silhouette of her forceful mind which haunts her work and gives it shape and meaning"—David J. Wilson, Rutgers Alumni Magazine

Artist Website: http://www.mariamijares.com

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Claudio Mir
Fantasia Los Tres Príncipes, 1995
Archival pigment print, 11” x 17” (Limited Edition)
Minimum bid: $200 (SOLD)

"I am obsessed with the cultural rituals of the immigrant, the calling cards, the trips back home, where we recognize ourselves as familiar-strangers, the suitcases full of coconut treats in jars, the salami traveling back and forth. The boxes and plastic containers full of clothing, food, blenders, crock pots and the idea that we are going to forget the life as it was before migrating and fully integrate in the new country? Are we going to spend the rest of our lives thinking in what we were, what could have been while engaged in a process of change and creation of a new Dominican, Mexican, Honduran etc? I am immerse in a search to find the Santo Domingo that I left behind and that I thought only existed in my head, but that I found in any corner of the new and globalizing Santo Domingo, Washington Heights, New Brunswick, Paterson, Perth Amboy, etc."

Claudio Mir was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He lives in the United States since 1985. Claudio graduated from La Escuela de Arte Escénico in Santo Domingo with a degree in acting. He also received a BFA in Visual Arts from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. Claudio is an avid photographer who integrates performance, video, film, music and photography in his work. His photo and video work has been shown in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Dominican Republic.

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"My work reflects my experience of reality. As a human being I have multiple experiences, each based on location and time. The image of the Purple Heart is a reflection of the traumatic experience in Vietnam. The image was formed on a metal plate using a photo etching process. The size of the image reflects the depth of the experience. The black and white reflects intensity of the experience."

Julio Nazario is Assistant Dean II for Outreach, Special Projects, and Assessment in The School of Arts and Sciences Honors Program, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He oversees and is responsible for co-curriculum program and activities. He is a graduate of Mason Gross School of Arts, Rutgers University with an M.F.A. in Visual Arts and Queens College (CUNY) with a B.A. in Philosophy. He is a practicing artist and is currently in a traveling group show “Saturday to Sunday” organized by Deb Willis, curator and professor of photography at NYU. He has lectured on Caribbean and American Cinema. This year marks his seventh year at Rutgers. Nazario was adjunct Associate Professor in photography at La Guardia Community College for 17 years and served as Instructor of Photography at the International Center of Photography in New York City for ten years. He served in the Vietnam War and was awarded the Purple Heart.

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Julio Cesar Ortiz
Rustic landscape (2003)
Oil on Canvas, 11" x 14"
Minimum Bid: $250

Born in 1975 in a farming village in northern Honduras, near the Guatemalan border, Julio Cesar Ortiz discovered his artistic talent for drawing and painting in elementary school. Following high school graduation, Ortiz first developed his talents through three years of correspondence enrollment in the Modern Art School in Miami, where he earned a degree in drawing. He then studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in San Pedro Sula for two years and attended workshops and apprenticed with distinguished Honduran painters. During that time, Ortiz worked primarily in oil on canvas, developing the techniques that characterize his primitivist personal style.

In 1994, at the age of 19, Ortiz was invited to mount his first solo (and first international) exhibition under the sponsorship of the Cultural House of Zacapa in Guatemala, where he exhibited twenty-five paintings demonstrating his proficiency in various styles: primitivism, romanticism, and impressionism. Back in Honduras, Ortiz participated in several collective exhibitions with other national artists.

In 1996 Ortiz immigrated to the United States and embarked on a new phase of his artistic career. In 1997 he received first place in the professional category in Plainfield's 34 Annual Festival of Art. Since then, his work has been exhibited at Mortimer Art Gallery in Gladstone, New Jersey; Rutgers University; and First Christian Assembly of Plainfield, NJ. Julio Ortiz presently resides in Plainfield, New Jersey.

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American Indian, 2007
Color print on vinyl, 96" x 61"
Minimum Bid: $2,000

Ortiz incorporated indigenous elements to the process of deconstruction,
underscoring his awareness of indigenous cultural practice and its
possibilities as a model for contemporary aesthetics. In the creation of his
earliest film works from the late 1950s, he hacks a film into pieces while
chanting. Placing the pieces into a medicine bag, he then arbitrarily
removed each piece and spliced them together in a completely random fashion.
In his video-film work from the early 1980s through to 1997 Ortiz used an
Apple computer hooked up to a laser disc player through which he scratched
(skipping the laser back and forth across the disc ) of appropriated film
footage he had transferred to laser disc, creating a stammering psychodrama
of fractured image, language and sound unraveling previously hidden meanings
disconnecting one from all familiar sense of forward and backward movement
in time and space.

Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1934, Raphael Montañez Ortiz is a graduate of
Art and Design High School of New York City, and studied at Pratt
Institute, where he began as a student of architecture, decided instead to
become a fine artist, and received his BFA and MFA at Pratt Institute in
1964, finishing a doctorate in Fine Arts and Fine Arts in Higher Education
at the Teachers College of Columbia University. Ortiz's works are in such
collections as the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Ludwig Museum in
Cologne, Germany, the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of
American Art, the Everson Museum in Syracuse, New York, the Chrysler Museum
in Virginia and the De Menil Collection in Houston, Texas.

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"We broke into the classroom’s closet to see if we could find something helpful. It was filled with glue, chalk and a ton of newspapers. We used all the future piñata papers to help dam the water coming in through the window slats. We needed to stay dry, we didn’t have any extra clothing."—Journal excerpt, Saturday, Oct 22.

"These images are remnants, traces of what’s left behind by the most intense hurricane recorded in the Atlantic Basin. Rather than documenting the cause, photographing the subtle evidence of destruction allowed me to cope with being witness to such catastrophe."

Miriam Romais is a New York based freelance photographer and curator. Her dual nationality (U.S.­–Brazil) and fluency in both Portuguese and English has given her an insight into the two cultures, and become an important part of her artistic and socio-documentary explorations. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the U.S. and abroad. These include the Museum of the City of New York, El Museo del Barrio and the Association of Hispanic Arts (NYC); the Smithsonian Institution (DC); the Field Museum (IL); the American Labor Museum (NJ); Society for Contemporary Photography (MO); the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History and the University of California-Berkeley (CA); Southern Light Gallery (TX); Light Work (NY); South Florida Art Center (FL); Photographic Resource Center (MA); the National Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures, Prague, Czech Republic; and the Severoceske Museum, Liberec, Northern Bohemia.

Her work is part of the book, video and HBO project, Americanos: Latino Life in the United States (Little Brown & Co, 1999). Romais has been published in the Motorcycle Safety Foundation’s Guide to Motorcycling Excellence: Skills, Knowledge and Strategies for Riding Right (Whitehorse Press, 2005). Other accomplishments include a Puffin Foundation grant (1999); a residency at Light Work (1997) and the Photographic Resource Center (1993); two grants from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation (1994, 1995); and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Rutgers University/MGSA, NJ (1990). Romais curated several exhibitions, most notably the traveling exhibition Fire Without Gold: Works by Photographers of Color (1990–1996), featuring Dawoud Bey, Albert Chong, Carrie Mae Weems, Eli Reed and other established artists. As a panelist/reviewer, she has served with FotoFest in Houston; the Santa Fe Center for Photography in NM; the Center for Photography in Woodstock (where she also serves on the Board of Advisors); the New York Foundation for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts; and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.

Romais is the Executive Director and Editor for En Foco, www.enfoco.org, a national non-profit photography organization that nurtures and supports photographers of Latino/a, African, Asian, Native American and Pacific Islander heritage through publications and exhibitions.

Artist Website: http://www.romaisphotos.com

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Sanchez combines painting and photography with other media clippings and found objects to confront America's political policies and social practices concerning his parents' homeland of Puerto Rico. Sanchez often specifically addresses Puerto Rico's battle for independence and the numerous obstacles facing disadvantaged Puerto Ricans in America. Sanchez has received many awards for his work, including a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Hispanic Academy of Media Arts and Sciences and the Pollack/Krasner Award. Sanchez has worked at Island Press twice: first in 1990 and again in 1997. His 1997 IP work, Sol y Flores para Liora, won a Grand Prize at the XII Bienal de San Juan del Grabado Latinoamericano y Del Caribe in 1998. Other work by Sanchez is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, El Museo del Barrio in New York, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and El Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña in San Juan. Both Island Press prints are in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Juan Sanchez earned his BFA from Cooper Union in 1977 and his MFA from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers State University of New Jersey in 1980. He currently teaches painting at Hunter College in New York City.

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Behind most of my work I use the idea of fragmentary memory to guide the imagery. My memory being so incomplete is often portrayed by the space given within the paper. Through this space I try to show the idea of fragility and impermanence of memory. I want the viewer to be able to somehow interact within my sphere and my reality, but also allowing a space for discomfort through the use of language barrier. I allow the viewer to enter my world and understand a small part of my discomforts. The use of dichos (sayings) within my work has evolved to hold sarcastic connotations of the imagery in the pieces.

Yilis del C. Suriel, born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, currently resides in Highland Park, New Jersey. She received a BFA in printmaking from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. She has been a teaching artist for the past 7 years throughout New Jersey. Her work has been exhibited at Mason Gross Gallery, Kenkeleba Gallery in New York and other venues.

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Raúl Villarreal is a visual artist living and working in the New York metropolitan area. He was born in San Francisco de Paula, Havana, Cuba in 1964. Villarreal migrated with his family to Madrid, Spain in 1972, and two years later the family moved to the United States, settling in Hudson County, New Jersey.

Villarreal has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design and Illustration. In 2005, he obtained a Master of Fine Arts Degree from New Jersey City University, with a concentration in painting and printmaking. He has participated in 15 solo exhibits and over 150 collective exhibits in the United States, and abroad. He has lectured numerous times on his work and Postcolonial theories, and participated in art several conferences.

Most recently, Villarreal finished collaborating with his father, René Villarreal on a book project. Hemingway’s Cuban Son, a manuscript based on his father’s 20 year friendship in Havana, Cuba, with the famous American author will be published by The Kent State University Press at the end of 2008.

Artist Website: http://www.raulvillarreal.com/

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Karin Weyland
Cofradía tocando en la Iglesia Buscando el Santo
Digital Print in Sepia, 12” x 18”
Minimum Bid: $300