“The process of coming to be something or of passing a state” defines the word “becoming”. This group exhibition BEcoming brings together four artists that share similar life experiences. The process of assimilating into a new culture (when families migrate to the United States) is a reality they share. For them this “passing state” is a continuous evolution into “becoming” as they search for their identity as American living in Southern California.
Although it is expected by the normal conventions of American society, “becoming” has its challenges. Each artist rises to this by making his or her voice heard through representational forms and hybrid urban landscapes in drawing and painting. The work of Ruben Cantoran is a personal reflection about his father’s journey leaving his native land of Mexico and creating a new life while always reminiscing about his homeland and struggling to fully assimilate. Stuck in the middle of two cultures, he finds solace and kinship in the lowrider community in South East Los Angeles where the individual expression of a lowrider car is as unique as the individual driving the lowrider. Jesus Nunez, too, in his artwork explores the color schemes , shapes, and patterns painted on the lowrider that he admired while growing up in Southern California. In contrast, Jacqueline Valenzuela’s work focuses on the growing number of women in the lowrider community who have been exceeding the expectations of a male dominated subculture. In her hybridized version of urban landscape, the female figures demand the attention of the viewer. Her women have “become” an integral part of the lowrider community. Priscilla S. Flores’ art pays homage to her family in Mexico, and how this loss created a burden in her family’s history and may still be present in her future. Often for her what remains are just family photos or mementos of family history; by using these objects to create new imagery she can retain a sense of it before her family history slowly erases itself in the process of her “becoming” an American.
The exhibition “BEcoming” investigates the shared burdens and struggles of the ancestral past of there four artists as they become part of the American fabric. “BEcoming” is a testament to their journey and continuous rite of transformation.