Capital City Arts Initiative

Artist’s Reception: Friday, September 14, 5 – 7pm
Exhibition Dates: September 14, 2012 – January 18, 2013
Exhibition Venue: CCAI Courthouse Gallery, 885 E Musser St, Carson City

Living in ‘El Norte’
at CCAI Courthouse Gallery

The Capital City Arts Initiative announces its exhibition, Living in ‘El Norte’, by artist Blanco de San Roman [Rafael Lopez] at the CCAI Courthouse Gallery from September 14, 2012 – January 18, 2013. CCAI will host a reception for the artist on Friday, September 14, from 5 – 7pm. During the reception, Blanco will give an informal talk about his work beginning at 5:30pm. The Courthouse is located at 885 E Musser Street, Carson City. The exhibition and reception are free and the public is cordially invited.

Living in ‘El Norte’ presents large oil on canvas portraits, of two of Blanco’s Reno friends, Alma and Ramiro, both of whom have lived with the difficulties of immigration status. Blanco’s exceptional paintings continue the centuries long Spanish tradition of monumental portrait painting with a few contemporary substitutions: Alma in the Nevada landscape and Ramiro in front of classical architecture at the University of Nevada Reno.

Through his paintings, Blanco records the struggle of illegal immigration here in the US because it is what he has lived and personally experienced during the nearly ten years he has lived in California and Nevada. Blanco said, “I believe one of the purposes of an artist is to question the environment that surrounds him/her in order to provide understanding and clarity for the artist and for the viewers.”

A native of Alicante, Spain, he came to the US as a profesional tennis player and to the University of Nevada Reno as a tennis coach. While at UNR, Blanco was accepted into the University’s Master of Fine Arts graduate program and will complete his MFA degree in the spring. Blanco earned a diploma in carpentry at the IES Virgen de La Paloma in Madrid in 2006 and a BA degree in Art at St. Mary’s College, Moraga, California in 2004. He exhibits his work in Spain and in the western US.

Deborah Boehm, PhD, has written the exhibition essay for Living in ‘El Norte’. Dr. Boehm is an assistant professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Anthropology and the Women’s Studies/Gender, Race, and Identity Program at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her areas of specialization include immigration, transnationalism, and borderlands; gender and women’s studies; childhood and family; and Mexico and the U.S. West.  She is the author of Intimate Migrations:  Gender, Family, and Illegality among Transnational Mexicans (2012, New York University Press) and co-editor of Everyday Ruptures:  Children, Youth, and Migration in Global Perspective (Vanderbilt University Press, 2011).  She has worked with Mexican migrants in both Mexico and the United States, and also studies the Burning Man community in Black Rock City, Nevada and beyond. Dr. Boehm’s essay for Living in ‘El Norte’ will be available online at ccainv.org and in the gallery during the exhibition.

Turkey and Peter Stremmel of Stremmel Gallery, Reno, provided a lead donation to CCAI to support the Living in ‘El Norte’ exhibition.

CCAI is an artist-centered organization committed to the encouragement and support of artists and the arts and culture of Carson City and the surrounding region. The Initiative is committed to community building for the area’s diverse adult and youth populations through art projects and exhibitions, live events, arts education programs, artist residencies, and online projects.

CCAI is funded, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts, John Ben Snow Memorial Trust, City of Carson City, Nevada Arts Council, Nevada Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the John and Grace Naumann Foundation.

top image: Alma 3, oil on canvas, 91″ x 59″; in the Northern Arizona University Art Museum’s collection
bottom image: the artist with US Census Form, detail, acrylic on unstretched canvas, 7′ x 6′, 2012