Alida Cervantes, Cole Fellow, to show at Mills Gallery
Please join the Art Department for the opening of Alida Cervantes: Majas, cambujas y virreinacas this coming Friday, April 14. Alida Cervantes is the 2014-15 winner of our Alice C. Cole '42 Fellowship, which is awarded to an outstanding early-career painter or sculptor, providing funds to support one year of unimpeded time and space to experiment, develop a body of work, and focus on future artistic goals.
This fellowship is made possible by the generous bequest of Wellesley Alumna Alice C. Cole '42. Aware of the burdens that face recent graduates of art school, Ms. Cole makes it possible for an artist to have 'a limited time free of economic necessity'-- an immensely valuable gift.
Colonial era women encounter nearly nude men in imaginative and perverse works by Alida Cervantes, which conflate Mexico’s racially and socially charged colonial past with its complex present. Cervantes’ work explores the complexity and tension of being a “border” artist, and the constant shifts of social and political lines as she crosses the border daily from San Diego to work in her art studio in Tijuana, Mexico. Her rich and provocative paintings, drawings and video work address social hierarchies, gender relations, and the reflexive histories situated within colonial and present-day Mexico, where “sex, love, and emotions both flow and are repressed”. Born in Tijuana and living in San Diego, this will be Cervantes’ first East Coast solo presentation of her work. The exhibition is curated by Candice Ivy.
Cervantes will be in conversation with Adriana Zavala of Tufts University from 5:00 - 6:00 pm.
Opening reception: