About the artist

Initial motifs in my current body of work involve a symbolic bullfight arena where battles take place between One and the Other. The rich and ornate beauty of a bullfighter’s suit of lights, the grace of their movements, the skill and the sheer courage executed stand in contrast to the cruel brutality and gore of the spectacle. My maximalist aesthetic is charged by these extreme elements. I transform the bullfight as an exploration of reverence and warfare into an acknowledgement that we are all one. My work is about loving the Other.

Sacred symbols of bulls in art and culture can be traced back to the unfolding of recorded human history. The bull has been worshiped as a god, it has been sacrificed to the gods and has been integrated into many rituals. From what I have revealed through this exploration, the bullfight represents the transition from matriarchal cultures that revered nature and balance into an eternally long period of domination, control over nature, patriarchy and warfare.

As the world faces environmental devastation, racial injustices and global inequities, I focus my work on envisioning and articulating a better world. I hand sew tapestries that are inspired by couture and the paradise of nature that dazzles me when I witness it in its splendor. They are narrative landscapes that explore the earth.

I am a painter who has been working predominantly with textiles for some time. My more recent works have evolved into softer, more flowing visions unconstrained by traditional hard edges, thereby making art that is more feminine in perspective.

A common mantra is that everything has been done already, yet I continue to be interested in exploring the possibilities of what can be. Now the world rises to proclaim it is time for unethical and outdated structures and beliefs to crumble and nurture the creation of a bountiful and equitable existence for all. In my art I see the ruins of the arenas of the world abundant with nature and the creativity of the human spirit. I see it as the Garden of Eden we inherited alongside the battle that exists to recognize and honor it.

Education

San Francisco Art Institute 2006 BFA

Exhibition History

Startup Art Fair, 2018

Hotel Del Sol, San Francisco Selection Committee: Monique Deschaines, Kimberley Johansson, Erik Nakamura, Lordy Rodriguez, Travis Somerville, Ann Trinca

Hybridity: The Supernatural, 2016

21C Museum Hotel Lexington

Alice Grey Stites, Chief Curator

21C at 10: A Global Gathering, 2016

21C Museum Hotel Louisville

The 21C Collection

AQUA MIAMI Art Fair, 2014

Autobody Art Gallery, Aqua Hotel, Miami, Florida

SUGAR, 2013

Autobody Art Gallery, Alameda

RED Members Showcase, 2009

Berkeley Art Center

Emeryville Artists Juried Show, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009

Jurors include: Paul Tomidy, Kimberley Johansson, Suzanne Tan, Maria Medua, Svea Lin Vezzone

Solo Mujeres, 2009

Mission Cultural Center

Curated by: Patricia Rodriguez

Artopia SF Weekly Mastermind Contest and Exhibition, 2009

Project 1, San Francisco

$2500 grant winner

Human Remains, 2008

Float Gallery, Oakland

New Visions, 2008

Pro Arts

Juried by Lucinda Barnes and Karen Tsujimoto

The Camo Show, 2007

San Marcos Gallery, Dominican University, San Rafael, CA

Invitational Show curated by Stephanie Peek

Marriage of One with the Other, 2006

The Diego Rivera Gallery, SFAI, San Francisco

Amar O Matar, 2005

Jotabequ Galley, San Jose, Costa Rica

Obscene Nature II: Loving the Other, 2004

Gallery 500, Portland, Oregon

On a Limb, By a Thread, 2004

Gallery 500, Portland, Oregon

Invitational Show curated by Alison Sumner

Sci-Fi Western, 2003

111 Minna Gallery, San Francisco

Invitational Show curated by Sunny Buick

Modern Day Mount Vesuvius, 2003

Vesuvio, San Francisco

Obscene Nature I: Weapons of Mass Destruction, 2003

The Diego Rivera Gallery, SFAI, San Francisco

Get Your War Off, 2003

Culture Clash Gallery, San Francisco

Invitational Show curated by Kim Maria and Craig LaRotonda

Performances

Wearing my camouflage ball gown dress as the Queen of War

• The Art of War Show, 111 Minna Galley, San Francisco 2008

• Armory Show, New York City, 2008

• SCOPE, New York City, 2008

• Gorgeous and Green, San Francisco 2008

• The Camo Show, San Marcos Gallery, San Rafael 2007

• 49 Geary Galleries 2003

Publications

New York Times “Come for the Guest Rooms. Stay for the Art Galleries”, Pableaux Johnson, 03/17

SF Weekly “Three Masterminds Winners Named: Use That $2,500 Wisely, Kids!” Will Harper 2/09

The San Francisco Chronicle, “The Camo Show” 12/07 Datebook p.52

The Emeryville Connection, “Art Celebrates 21st Year” R. Brigham 10/07

La Nacion Costa Rica “Muestra Recrea Baile de Amor y Muerte” D.Diaz 8/05, p.24

Dwell “The Pace of Portland” B. Libby 3/05, p.50

My bumblebee Halloween costume hand sewn by my grandmother gave me my first opportunity to wear fishnet stockings. The 1970s aesthetic, with all its funk, flash and glam profoundly influenced my childhood imagination. Born in Oakland in 1971, my parents raised me in the San Francisco Bay Area. My ancestors are from Italy, Spain and the Indigenous Americas.

My father opened his restaurant Caffé Giovanni, on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley in 1961. From a very young age I worked and played in this landmark restaurant that had a fifty-five year life span. Growing up in Berkeley during my formative years had a huge impact on my art practice that came to fruit much later in life. I knew myself from a young age to be an artist, however I discovered my love of working with textiles as an art form in my thirties.

My father’s mother, Nonna Savaria and I were very close. She would speak mostly in Italian and though she was the sole person I spoke the language with, we understood each other completely. She had immigrated by boat in the early 1930s pregnant with my father who was her first of seven. The heart of Giovanni’s in its origination was Nonna. Every day early in the morning she made marinara sauce, meatballs, cannoli and cookies which she would pass out to our guests. Everyone loved her so much, especially me, she was my best friend. She always wore big colorful dresses that I adored and wanted to mirror. She was Love embodied, when she embraced me I felt safe and happy to be by her side nestled under her arm.

As a young girl the restaurant itself sparked my artistry. My father hired an architect named Terry Lindal to redesign the vast space, which had previously housed a muffler shop. Witnessing its transformation influenced my love of constructing environments that activate all the senses. Both hip and timeless, the new incarnation displayed the warmth of custom woodwork and copper, surrounded by vibrant murals of Italian sidewalk cafes and seaside towns painted by legendary muralist Donald Clever.

Through the decades the restaurant became so much more than a dining establishment. My father employed hundreds of individuals that became close like family, which included the guests who made Giovanni’s their their go to place to celebrate. Completely enchanted by this beautiful community, I grew to love the restaurant business. Many members of my mother’s side of the family including my grandmother also worked there. It was truly special.

My grandmother migrated from New Mexico to the Bay Area in 1945. She had grown up on a ranch in a rural area outside of Santa Fe where her family endured many hardships. Before the age of twenty she moved to California alone in search of job opportunities and a different life for herself. Coming from a tight and proud family of Chicano heritage, my grandma was driven to assimilate and she struggled to succeed. Through two difficult marriages, she worked hard and took care of her growing family of six as a predominantly single mother. She sewed magical Halloween costumes for me when I was young. She taught me the craft of hand sewing. I felt empowered with this skill and loved creating beside her.

Within the playground at my Berkeley Montessori preschool I vividly remember the enchanting earthy macramé jungle gym. It reminded me of a giant tropical tree with massive roots. It seemed to capture the spirit and aesthetic of the time and place so magnificently. There I received my first gift from a crush, a set of pastels. I remember field trips to the Emeryville Mudflats where we made driftwood sculptures. Every time I drove past on the I80 freeway with my parents, I proudly pointed out what I had built, even though it was only a few colorful remnants of driftwood from other sculptures nailed together. I loved seeing that free art space grow, change, shock, surprise and delight. It represented liberation, rebelliousness and creativity for me.

My parents were fashionistas. My papa, not afraid of color, usually wore a custom made suit of some unusually light textile paired with a beautifully patterned bright silk shirt and a gold chain. My young and gorgeous mother loved the new life of glamor afforded to her after falling in love with my father. My mother raised me to be obsessed with fashion and would guide me through Union Square to fawn over the wonders of Gucci and Hermes for playtime.

When I was around age seven my mother commissioned local textile artist Susan Lewis to create a coat for herself and wraparound skirt for me with an appliquéd personal narrative! She had used fabrics to create a simple landscape based in reality yet rich with imagination. They are heirloom pieces I cherish. It wasn’t until half of my life later when it would dawn on me how much artworks such as these and growing up in Berkeley influenced my sensibilities as a person and artist.

Around 1999 as I began integrating textiles into my paintings, I randomly purchased a vintage pink dress form from an antique store and began layering carnival tickets on it to make a dress. A few years later, as operation Shock and Awe reigned down upon Baghdad, I designed a camouflage ball gown dress symbolizing the outrageously grandiose use of force with which this war was beginning. This is when I became a textile artist.

Over the following years as the war became entrenched in Iraq I continued to develop the ballgown dress and wore it to protests, art fairs, throughout San Francisco and New York City. In the mode of pomp from the past speaking to the present I began my first large scale tapestry.

Deep in my journey of working with textiles as my primary art medium I discovered the book Native Funk & Flash and resonated as kindred with the author and artist Alexandra Jacopetti. Her beautifully realized work sparked a deep recognition of the inspiration at my core growing up in Berkeley in the 70s and offered me insight to this initiation of the free spirit aesthetic path winding into my present.

This was around the time I was completing hand sewing my thirteen foot high by twenty-eight foot wide tapestry Matador Lady Killer with assistance from Zhenne Wood, an extraordinary artist, dollmaker and expert seamstress. This five year plus project is a narrative landscape in which I pieced together colors, textures and patterns to tell my layered story of battle transforming into love.

Earlier in life at age twenty-two, I lived in Bangkok with my lover, a Thai tattoo artist. Vital in our blissful and radical young love, our paths and dreams entwined. A tiger of a man, brazen in a land known for its peaceful ways, he stood out. Living beside him I was naive to the dangers at our door. One dreadful night an assassin walked into his tattoo shop, below our home, on a mission. With a fast and penetrative eye to eye stare the killer stormed past me and directly fired two bullets into my lover’s head and another to his throat. Moments later as I held him in my arms and attempted to resuscitate him a crowd gathered in a circle around us forming an arena of spectators. This trauma set a trajectory in my life and work.

Recovering back in the States, I worked in a San Diego Spanish nightclub. The walls were decorated with vintage bullfight posters. My consciousness forged a link between the brutal public spectacle of the bullfight and the savage murder of my lover. During that time, I found the slang definition of Matador as Lady Killer in a dictionary and the impact of this meaning provoked me to research the history of the bullfight further. For me the continued existence of the bullfight displays the transition from ancient peaceful partnership societies whose ruins reveal evidence of reverence of nature, oftentimes featuring the bull, coinciding with balance of masculine and feminine energies into an eternally long period of fascination with warfare, domination and control over nature and women.

In 2003, as a student at the San Francisco Art Institute, my paintings became sculptural and flew off the wall and hung from the rafters. Difficult to find space for large scale work, the rarely visited and untamed campus garden became my studio and a massive buckeye tree my muse. I retaught myself how to sew and drape by quilting a garment for the vibrant tree teaming of hummingbirds and bees, swirling with life. Within it a dear friend and I built a heart shaped nest with ergonomic seating for three.

Over the years my art has evolved into softer more flowing visions unconstrained by traditional hard edges, thereby making art that is more feminine in perspective. My most recent work is a collection of hand sewn tapestries made predominantly from reclaimed denim, fish netting and vintage textiles, inspired by couture and the paradise of nature that dazzles me when I witness it in its splendor. They are narrative landscapes that explore the earth, which I see as the Garden of Eden we inherited alongside the battle that exists to recognize and honor it.

Through love and heartbreak in the time of Coronavirus, the tranquility of not working in the restaurant industry facilitated memory, reflection and a focused method on the simplicity of being.

Simultaneously, the conceptual framework I draw from is Magical Realism: a genre of literature that depicts the real world as having an undercurrent of fantasy; e.g.Gabriel García Márquez. My usage of this framing paints a representative view of the modern world while adding fantastical elements. This guides the art to exemplify paradise as real, thus engaging and blurring the lines between fantasy, reality and what is possible. As the world faces environmental devastation, racial injustices and global inequities, I focus my work on envisioning a better world.

As a girl I felt like a goddess the first time my grandma’s hand sewn bumblebee fishnet costume touched my skin. Wearing such an alluring outfit transformed me. Nature’s intimacy enticed me, like a bee drawn to a magnolia. The nascent magic of creativity in my youth carries me toward infinite potential through adulthood.

In this spirit, as my faculties and actions form new images and concepts. I manifest maximalist textural tapestries. As I stitch, I travel into these worlds and articulate healing and reparation in a cyclical flow forward toward paradise on earth.

I would like to acknowledge my appreciation for Lise Silva Gomez, Timo Rodriguez and Katherine Gasparich for their encouragement and support in writing this piece