Unruly, 2021

The installation "Unruly" reckons Mia B. Adams’s perception of beauty from youth to adulthood. As a young Black Latinx girl growing up in a predominately white community, the artist wished her curly hair was straight. Struggling with self-acceptance in the past, the artist often used straighteners to suppress her hair’s natural texture. Over time, the artist realized her inherent beauty and power. The pile of straighteners that make up Unruly symbolizes the object’s dwindling influence and acts as a form of protest against tools that invalidate beauty ideals for women of color.

Lead With Your Looks, 2021

"Lead With Your Looks" is part of a series of tapestry like sculptures made from synthetic braided hair and pony beads to create intricate patterns that tell stories, signify identity, and explore stages of grief. Hair braiding in Black culture simultaneously serves as a form of adornment and protection against the structurally fragile nature of Black hair, hence the name “protective style.” Pony beads evoke a sense of childlike nostalgia, bringing one back to a time of innocence and vulnerability, a mindset desired in the face of trauma and grief. In a society that restricts women’s self-expression through misogynistic narratives, the phrase Lead "With Your Looks" is a reclamation of power, allowing women to take back ownership of their bodies, sexuality, and autonomy.

heavy load you tow, 2021

Vincent Chung’s practice expands the traditional processes of painting by stitching together two-dimensional surfaces with various pieces of linen and employing unusual materials to mark them. The mediums that Chung chooses to use have natural qualities that contribute to the final form. For example, oils absorb into the linen rather than sitting on its surface. Even the effects of neon lights alter the outcome of the painting by colorfully illuminating the canvas and its surroundings. To Chung, the unpredictable ways that these materials react to each other on the painting’s surface creates moments of chance—an essential element of the artist’s practice.

she smokes menthol cigarettes, 2021

bitter wind to hold my shaky hands, 2021

Long Hair te Queda Mejor ASMR, 2021

The three works presented in this exhibition are a continuation of Steffi Faircloth’s ongoing body of work titled Bordertown ASMR. In this series, the artist demonstrates role-play situations that embody her border town experiences and elicits ASMR—a pleasurable feeling combined with a tingling sensation. The situations are based on a shared desire by youth from the artist’s hometown to be visible in the media without perpetuating stereotypes of border town life. In "Long Hair te Queda Mejor ASMR," Faircloth situates the viewer as the recipient of a haircut. The rich and relaxing audio contrasts with the dialogue in which the hairstylist reinforces conventional notions of femininity and disregards the client’s definition of self.

Metallix Tazos, 2021

In "Metallix Tazos," Faircloth prints portraits of actresses on found Tazos—disks distributed worldwide as promotional toys like Pogs—which were used, mostly by boys, to play games in the artist’s grade-school courtyard.

Tazo ASMR, 2021

Through the video "Tazo ASMR," Steffi Faircloth connects herself, an ASMR performer, with actresses that have influenced the artist’s online presence and femininity. Collectively, the works in Faircloth’s Bordertown ASMR series touch on nostalgia and examine societal-gender norms that transcend borders.

The Meet Cute, 2021

"The Meet Cute" is a video compilation of scenes from romantic comedies (rom-coms), where the main love interests encounter each other for the first time—La La Land, When Harry Met Sally, Pretty in Pink, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, 50 First Dates, The Wedding Planner, and 500 Days of Summer. For Sam Frésquez, watching these popular movies in her youth suggested a way of seeing the world through a light-hearted, heteronormative lens. In this new work, the artist questions how male gender is performed in relation to her own body by superimposing herself over the male love interest in each scene. Through the process of inserting herself into iconic Hollywood rom-coms, Frésquez is appropriating the ease of mainstream white, cis-gendered, heterosexual relationships to center narratives of queer love.

Huitzilopochtli, 2021

In the immersive video installation "Huitzilopochtli"—named after the Mexica-Aztec god of war, sun, and human sacrifice—Estephania González presents an exploration of the expansive connection between humans, nature, and the cosmos in four sequences. Preparation of the mind and body, cleansing of the land and spirit, and healing of past traumas are all central themes. In each sequence the artist performs as a celestial being who comes to Earth as a conduit to the universe. González walks, cleans, and meditates in areas near the Arizona-Mexico border to reveal traumas imposed by humans on the land, animals, and other humans. Overall, the work is a metaphor for experiencing and healing the chasm created by disregarding the fragility of humanity and nature.

Soliloquy for hypothetical objects (detail), 2021

Top row: "Untitled diagram for hypothetical objects, I, II, III," 2021. Sumi ink, pen, gouache, white charcoal, and graphite on paper; 11 x 8 ½ inches each. Bottom row, left to right: "Burn shrine (for dirt clod)," 2021. Wood, glass beads, cotton thread, foam, plywood, gesso, sand, acrylic. "Shrine for log," 2021. Digitally printed chiffon, batting, wire, paper, joint compound, glass beads, cotton thread, plywood, gesso, sand, Sumi ink, China marker, graphite, acrylic. "Pool shrine," 2021. Flagging tape, mapping pin, cotton thread, glass beads, reflective glass beads, granite, quartz, plywood, gesso, sand, China marker, acrylic.

Soliloquy for hypothetical objects, 2021

In this new body of work, Lena Klett formally dissects the digitized natural world, such as a digital photograph of a granite rock and a three-dimensional rendering of a log. While both rock and log are real, the artist uses their simulacra to make further iterations of the objects through drawings and sculptures. Klett considers the abstract drawings to be translations of an object—diagrams and informational graphics—and the sculptures to be depictions of the object’s actions or touch—that which is non-verbal and hard to describe. As suggested in the title, the objects are hypothetical proposals for an alternative view of the natural world.

Six Evolve VI, 2021

Cydnei Mallory’s large sculptural installation is the sixth iteration of the ongoing series "Six Evolve." Originally made as a visual metaphor for the connections amongst her immediate family, the wood pillars in this new version express a communal family linked together in peaceful protest to protect BIPOC bodies. As a member of a multi-generation interracial family, Mallory believes in the importance of racial ally ship and healing trauma through physical perception. In this work, each wood beam relies on the other to find strength in unity.

The Blinds Wide Open, 2021

Brianna Noble, The Rules In My House, 2021.

Brianna Noble’s new paintings for this exhibition present visions of alternate worlds—one where the artist drinks a glass of water in her kitchen and the other where plural manifestations of the artist sit in a fantastical room. The painting "The Blinds Wide Open," positions the viewer looking through a window at the artist who is unaware of her audience. The second is a diptych, titled "The Rules in My House," where the artist is in control as her many selves look directly at the viewer. In both situations, Noble offers paintings that subtly and explicitly question hierarchies of power.

Room to Breathe, 2021

Soundtrack by Pily, mixed and mastered by Rodrigo Pintado [Banda sonora de Pily, mezclada y masterizada por Rodrigo Pintado]. Video by Josephine Ortiz Merida [Video por Josephine Ortiz Merida]. Neon programming by Francisco Flores [Programación de neón por Francisco Flores]. The immersive installation "Room to Breathe" was developed over a year of quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic in which the artist, her partner Miguel, and brother-in-law Quin discovered the Wim Hof method—a technique for stress management through dedicated conscious breathing exercises and cold exposure therapy. During the initial quarantine period we witnessed and experienced traumatizing events as individuals and as a society—racial injustices aggravated by police brutality, Black Lives Matter and other social justice protests, a polarizing president, and endless natural disasters caused by global warming. Reeves collaborated with family and friends to remedy their minds and bodies by reclaiming breath as a tool to cultivate inner peace. Now the artist invites the viewer to join the meditation as an act of healing.

The Dance to the Top of the Palm Tree, Bright Ntimba, Part I and II, 2021

Papay Solomon’s photorealistic portraits of African immigrants living in Arizona include layers of meaning that can be seen in the figure’s posture and attire. For this exhibition, Solomon painted two portraits of his high school friend Bright Ntimba who came from the Republic of Burundi. The diptych focuses on Ntimba from two vantage points, suggesting the multitude of perspectives needed to comprehend the individual. This double vision also offers different views of the figure’s attire: a fur coat, gold necklace, and headdress made from a disposable foil space blanket. The mixture of opulent and utilitarian materials suggests a wealth not only of possessions, but also of life and spirit.