Show Gives Glimpse of Latino Life

The painting, with its dark tones and streetwise style, greets visitors to the Mestizo Visions art exhibit at the Cal State Channel Islands campus.

Fillmore artist Chuy Rangel figures it provides the perfect symbol for the show at large, which runs through Oct. 13 and features nearly two dozen Latino artists from Ventura and Los Angeles counties.

In the acrylic artwork, Rangel depicts a brown-skinned man branded with tattoos--some paying homage to family, others to barrio life in his hometown of Fillmore.

It would be easy to dismiss him as just another gang member, Rangel said. But he hopes visitors probe deeper.

“I want people to open up their minds, to understand that this man could be your neighbor or your professor,” said Rangel, 30, who has been exhibiting his work since grade school and has been featured in galleries from San Francisco to Scotland.

“I want people to not be closed to a person whose exterior is of this nature,” he said. “You should take the time to understand this person and to acknowledge him as a person who resides alongside you.”

That’s what Mestizo Visions is all about.

The exhibit, which opened Saturday at the Studio Channel Islands Art Center near Camarillo, is designed to peel back the many layers of Latino culture and lay them bare before a wide audience, many of whom might be unfamiliar with Latino customs and traditions.

The gallery is open Thursday through Saturday from 12 to 3 p.m. and features the work of pioneer Chicano artists and relative newcomers.

“This show is about helping people better understand each other,” said Carmen Ramirez, a member of the art studio’s board of directors and co-curator of the exhibit.

“It kind of embraces the culture: the good, the bad and the ugly,” she said. “And it allows these artists to share their vision, their art and even their suffering.”

There is plenty of those things to go around.

In two large exhibit rooms, there are paintings of street scenes, laborers, roosters, revolutionaries and religious images. Some are fun, taking in everything from Chicano car culture to a Latina corn dog vendor. Most, however, are packed with social commentary.

Like the pieces by local artist Claudia Pardo, who works out of the Channel Islands studio and depicts the cultural oppression of women. Or the painting by Santa Paula artist Xavier Raul Montes showing Border Patrol agents rounding up illegal immigrants.

Oxnard sculptor and stone carver Francisco Robles exhibits a couple of pieces at the show, including a glass-on-wood structure he calls “Haiku.”

Trained by stone carvers at Art City in Ventura, Robles has been involved in a number of public art projects. He calls his latest the Chrysalis Project, which consists of installing papier mache cocoons in public spaces up and down the West Coast.

“I’m pretty stoked to be in the show,” he said. “I hope this shows the talent that is in Ventura County, because there is a lot here.”

There’s more to the exhibit than Ventura County artists.

Co-curator Wayne Alaniz Healy, a founding member of the pioneer group of muralists called the East Los Angeles StreetScapers, said the show provides a perfect opportunity to team the talents of established Los Angeles artists with those of emerging Latino artists in Ventura County.

But he said it also provides an opportunity to establish the county’s fledgling Cal State campus as a haven for a diverse art scene.

“The university is a bit of an island, so that’s a big reason to show some of the artists from the local community,” said Healy, who also is exhibiting his work.

“I certainly hope that the public in Ventura County comes away with an appreciation for the rich heritage that they have in their community, if they don’t know it already,” he said.