Artists Talk with Ala Ebtekar and Almudena Ortiz

Sat, Feb 11
2:00-4:00 pm
FREE

Join us for a discussion with two very different exhibiting artists,
whose work shares themes of cross-cultural communication. Artist Ala
Ebtekar discusses his installation "Emergence," on view in the
Richmond Art Center's West Gallery. Photographer Almudena Ortiz will
talk about her project "Overcoming Faceless Labor," on view in our
Community Gallery. Both exhibitions are open Tuesday-Saturday, 12-5
pm, until March 18, 2006.


Ala Ebtekar
Ala Ebtekar's work draws from historical, mythological, and
contemporary events and characters related to his Iranian background,
and to his coming up in the early hip-hop era in the San Francisco
Bay Area. Included in this installation is a series of site-specific
paintings and sculptures which draw on and transform the existing
architecture of the gallery, fusing the iconography of traditional
Persian wrestlers with that of '80s hip-hop. Ebtekar will be opening
a concurrent show of new drawings at Gallery Paule Anglim on February
2, 2006.

Ala Ebtekar received his B.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute
in 2002, and is currently an M.F.A. candidate at Stanford University
(anticipated 2006). Upcoming exhibitions include a solo show of
drawings at Gallery Paule Anglim in San Francisco, opening February 2
and running concurrently with his Richmond Art Center exhibition, and
"One Way or Another: Asian-American Art Now," at the Asia Society,
New York, opening September 8, 2006 (and traveling to Berkeley Art
Museum and other venues in 2007). Ebtekar's most recent solo/two-
person exhibitions were "Ala Ebtekar & Jeong-Im Yi," Lisa Dent
Gallery, San Francisco, CA (2005) and "Elemental," Intersection for
the Arts, San Francisco (2004). In 2005, his work was included in the
group exhibitions "Do'Ka," La Condition Publique, Roubaix, France;
"Paper Cuts (again)," Fetterly Gallery, Vallejo, CA; "rePresent,"
Oliver Art Center, California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA; and
"CrossConnections: of Past and Present," Intersection for the Arts.
Ebtekar was awarded a Jack and Gertrude Murphy Fine Arts Fellowship
in 2005.


Almudena Ortiz
Almudena Ortiz documents the lives of Mexican immigrant farm workers.
Denied the opportunities available to other immigrant groups in this
country, these humble laborers nonetheless strive to bridge the gap
between their culture of origin and their adopted home. This project
was made possible in part by the California Council for the
Humanities as part of its California Stories initiative.
www.californiastories.org.

Almudena Ortiz, a native of Mexico, is a freelance photographer based
in Berkeley, CA. She specializes in portraiture, editorial and fine
art work. She holds a B.A. in Art History form the Instituto de
Cultura Superior in Mexico City, a degree from Brooks Institute of
photography and M.A.in folklore from the University of California at
Berkeley. She is the recipient of a California Council for the
Humanities grant in 2004.

Venue:

The Richmond Art Center
2540 Barrett Avenue
Richmond
510-620-6772
http://www.therichmondartcenter.org/

Exit I-80 at San Pablo Avenue/Barrett Avenue. If approaching from
west (SF), turn right on San Pablo, then right onto Barrett. If
coming from east,/north, exit right on Barrett. After approximately 1
mile, make a left onto 25th Street. Parking lot/entrance on the left.

From BART: Richmond Line to Richmond station. Exit 18th St & Barrett
Ave. Walk to 25th St.

Additional Info:

510-620-6772
http://www.therichmondartcenter.org/