Emerging and established Latino, Latina and Latinx MN-based artists in conversation with local independent curator William Gustavo Franklin. Books will be available for purchase and signing.

The artists who will take part in the Sep.21 discussion are as follows:

Carmen Gutiérrez-Bolger is a painter and multi-media artist who draws on her experiences growing up in southern Florida as a Cuban refugee by using personal history, Cuban iconography, texture, and geometry to convey the struggle to belong and to fit in—the immigrants’ process of assimilation.

Cecilia Cornejo Sotelo is a documentary filmmaker, artist, and educator engaging rural communities in southern Minnesota in a multilayered exploration of home and belonging. Her experience growing up under a dictatorship in her native Chile led her to develop and artistic practice that encourages community members to reflect, envision, and generate paths toward collective wellbeing

Dougie Padilla‘s art channels transfiguration, spirituality, pain, sex, and the abundances of life through the many worlds he has traveled: Chican0(a)/Latin0(a) cultural warrior, anti-war activist, ashramite in India, psychedelic hippie farmer, single father, and local and regional arts scene mover and shaker.

Luis Fitch explores cross-cultural issues in multiple mediums: traditional Mexican paper cutting, silkscreen, traditional and digital illustration, mixed-media painting on canvas, and on recycling corrugated boxes, wheat paste, and urban art installations.

Martha Gabriela Driessen is a photographer whose work explores the identity of Mexican people through candid moments of everyday life. Defined by the marriage of two cultures, her work is inspired by her Mexican essence, her American reality, and the simplicity of everyday life.

Xavier Tavera uses photography and moving images to document real and fictitious allegories to depict the Latin American diaspora in the United States, which is motivated by the methodical erasure of Latino(a) culture and the challenge to preserve and sustain it.

William "Billy" Gustavo Franklin (he/him/él) is an educator and an independent art curator. Franklin was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, and has been living in Minnesota for over twenty-five years. Franklin has curated more than a dozen exhibits locally and served as panelist reviewing applications for grants and artist-in-residence programs. He is co-curating the exhibit Latina and Latinx Minnesota: Re/claiming Space in Times of Change together with local artist and educator Zamara Cuyún. The exhibit will take place at The Catherine G. Murphy Gallery at St. Catherine University in St. Paul during the fall of 2024. He teaches history of art, design and criticism at the Minneapolis College of Art and Dunwoody College of Technology. Franklin is a part-time Educator at the Walker Art Center. 
 

“Latin Art in Minnesota--Conversations and What's Next” is proudly published by Afton Press, distributed by University of Minnesota Press services and designed by UNO Branding. The book was made possible by the people of Minnesota through a grant funded by an appropriation to the Minnesota Historical Society from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and by generous donors.