Artspeak Radio + Israel Garcia, Emily Alvarez, & Miguel Rivera

Artspeak Radio, Wednesday, May 1, 2024, 9am -10am CST, 90.1fm KKFI Kansas City Community Radio, streaming live audio www.kkfi.org

Producer/host Maria Vasquez Boyd welcomes artists Israel Garcia, Emily Alvarez, and Miguel Rivera.

A Layered Presence / Una presencia estratificada
Artists and art are multilayered.

Each artist in this exhibition is a nuanced individual, with many layers informing their identity and the stories they tell through their art. Among them are their experiences, passions, and roles in our community. These layers are interwoven with strong personal ties to Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Colombia, Uruguay, and Peru.
Like the artists themselves, their art is also multifaceted—composed of layers of subject matter, materials, and meaning. At the intersection of these layers, there is evidence of lived experiences. Artists also reckon with immigration and LGBTQIA+ issues as well as address family dynamics, ancestral relationships, healing, place, and more. While some of these layers reveal, others purposefully protect and conceal.
The power to authentically tell one’s own story is significant. It can foster connection, promote understanding, preserve history, and signify resilience. For this exhibition, the artists wrote labels to accompany their art and recorded audio interviews. Using the Smartify app, scan a work of art to hear more from each artist.

A Layered Presence on view now through September 2024
Nelson Atkins Museum 4525 Oak KCMO www.nelson-atkins.org

Israel Alejandro Garcia Garcia is a native of Michoacán, Mexico and spent his formative years growing up in Los Angeles, California. In early 1997 he transplanted his art practice to Kansas City to become part of Kansas City’s arts community. Now a longtime resident and artist of the Kansas City area, he is the Creative Director/Curator of Garcia Squared Contemporary in the Crossroads Arts District. Garcia Squared is a contemporary art gallery serving Kansas City’s diverse communities by introducing national/international artists and their works through a curated experience.
http://garciasquared.com

Emily Alvarez is a professional illustrator with years of experience in mural painting, digital art making, design, sculpture, visual storytelling and art education. Her work has been featured in the Nelson Atkins museum and been covered by PBS and NPR among others. Her main sources of inspiration are children’s media, horror, comics and the challenge of new artistic experiences.
She is bilingual in English and Spanish, is of Dominican and Cuban descent and has been based in the Kansas City area since 2014.
She graduated from KCAI with a BFA in illustration in 2018. www.emilyalvarez.art

Miguel Rivera, associate professor and chair of printmaking, is a practicing artist who has had many solo and group exhibitions in Romania, Poland, China, Argentina, Mexico, Japan and the United States. Before joining KCAI, he was chair of the art department at the University of Guanajuato in Mexico, where he also served as an associate professor of printmaking and computers in art. He has lectured as a visiting artist in Argentina, Peru, Mexico and the United States, appearing at the Contemporary Arts Festival in Guanajuato, the Southern Graphics Council conference and an alternative printmaking workshop at the second annual Art Students Conference in Queretaro. He earned a B.F.A. degree in printmaking and painting from Southern Oregon University in Ashland and an associate degree in printmaking from the University of Guanajuato. He also received an MFA from West Virginia University in Visual Arts and Applied Media. He has been a visiting artist in the Italy, Mexico, Japan, US, Argentina, China and Peru.
His work is collected by university collections, private collections and museums. His work is now part of the Nelson Atkins Museum permanent collection and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art permanent collection in Kansas City, Missouri and the Napoca Museum of Art in Romania.
He has been a board member at the Kansas City Artists Coalition, KC Artists Inc Steering Committee Advisor and a former board member at Mattie Rhodes Center in Kansas City. He is a current board member at ArtsKC.
www.miguelriveraart.com

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