Oluseyi “Sonny” Sholola, Phoenix
Family Affair, 1993
Lithograph
Private Collection
Sonny Sholola is originally from Nigeria and was an art instructor at South Mountain High School for many years. He is currently the CEO of Arizona Comfort Care Social Services LLC. The artist was a member of the Artists of the Black Community/Arizona.
Clendolyn Corbin (1923–2014)
Potpourri, 1993
Lithograph
Private Collection
Clendolyn Corbin held a bachelor of arts from Wichita State University and a master of arts in art from Arizona State University. She was an art instructor in Phoenix and Wichita public schools and an art consultant for Roosevelt School District #66 in Phoenix. She was also a docent at the Phoenix Art Museum for 12 years and a member of the Artists of the Black Community/Arizona. Corbin’s artwork reflected her interpretation of religious and ethnic subjects.
Bernard Young, Tempe
Desert Head, 1993
Lithograph
Private Collection
Dr. Bernard Young is an award-winning professor of art education at Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts and is a practicing artist. Young’s research focuses on multicultural issues in art and education with special interests in children’s development and learning. His work was included in the exhibition Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963–1983, organized by the Tate Modern in London. The artist was a member of the Artists of the Black Community/Arizona.
Eugene Grigsby (1918–2013)
Yemenja, 1997
Lithograph
Private Collection
Dr. Eugene Grigsby was a prolific artist and professor at the School of Art at Arizona State University. During his tenure he became the first black author and artist to publish a landmark book for art educators with Art and Ethnics: Background for Teaching Youth in a Pluralistic Society. As an educator, Grigsby was known for encouraging students to use their cultural heritage to understand their own identities and to inform their art practice.
In addition to co-founding the Artists of the Black Community/Arizona, Grigsby also worked to provide opportunities for young minority artists to exhibit their work through the founding of COBA (Consortium of Black Artists and Others for the Arts) which exhibited artwork from inner-city high school students in Phoenix and brought prominent African American artists to the Phoenix region.
Roosevelt “RIP” Woods (1933–2001)
Two Dancers In Memory, 1993
Lithograph
Private Collection
RIP Woods achieved a master of arts in art education from Arizona State University in 1958, where he taught drawing, painting, and print from 1965–1992 and was a professor emeritus artist/educator from 1992–2001. Woods’s work is part of the permanent collections of several museums and galleries nationally and internationally and was the first African American to have a solo show at the Phoenix Art Museum. “I am a black artist, so all of my work is black art, whether or not it has imagery of black people or black things,” Woods said.
RIP was both artist and activist, and with Eugene Grigsby, was one of the original co-founders of Artists of the Black Community/Arizona to foster the development of the Black art community here.
Joe Willie Smith, Phoenix
Little Boy Blue, 2020
Painted steel, aluminum, wood
Little Boy Blue is a biographical statement.
“In the late 1950s I lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
“Every opportunity, I would ride my bicycle to Lake Michigan and hike along the shore until I found the perfect boulder to sit on to view the skyline. The boulders along the lake are giant slabs of white limestone. As I sat there, I often experienced an optical illusion of thousands of tiny luminescent dots, flowing from the horizon.
“I think back on that experience and realize that I was meditating.”
— Joe Willie Smith
Joe Willie Smith grew up in Arkansas and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and was co-founder of Milwaukee’s artist cooperative and cultural incubator The Gallery Toward the Black Aesthetic in 1969. He was a graphic designer for many civil rights organizations at the Black Panthers printing facility in Youngstown, Ohio, and taught graphic design at Youngstown State University. Smith was an award-winning art director at the Tribune Chronicle in Warren, Ohio, and the Arizona Republic. He has taught The Art of Finding at Phoenix College, served on the Roosevelt Row board, and exhibited and performed with his sculptural works widely in the Valley. The artist was a member of the Artists of the Black Community/Arizona.
Annie Lopez, Phoenix
Virginia’s American Education, 2018
Archival pigment print
Annie Lopez, Phoenix
No Other Girl, 2020
Archival pigment print
Annie Lopez, Phoenix
Native North American, 2020
Cyanotype on tamale wrapper paper, thread
“My perspective of living in Arizona in the 21st century is shaped by growing up in Arizona in the 20th century. As a child, I was made to feel different by my teachers. I was used as an example of skin pigment. I was asked what my family ate at Thanksgiving, though we ate turkey like everyone else. My school days are long past, but things haven’t changed. Comments that strangers direct at me make me feel I need to prove my family has deep roots in Arizona. I always felt the need to prove I belong here. The work I make reflects that need. I share my experiences and family history, using humor to educate.”
— Annie Lopez
Gloria Martinez-Granados, Phoenix
8th Grade Promotion Certificate, 2018
Lithograph
Gloria Martinez-Granados, Phoenix
HS Diploma, 2018
Lithograph
Gloria Martinez-Granados, Phoenix
GWCC Nursing Degree, 2018
Lithograph
“In 2012, President Barack Obama announced DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), protection from deportation for some young immigrants who met the requirements (i.e., showed documentation). I, along with approximately 800,000 other “Dreamers,” gained authorization to work, a social security number, a driver license, and the possibility to continue our education. My mother kept what paperwork she thought would be important. This included my first report card in the United States, awards, photos, and certificates.
“Through my artwork I reflect on my experience growing up as an undocumented immigrant in the United States. By digital manipulation of personal documents and photos, I make prints. I create a memoir of documents I have acquired living ‘undocumented’ in the United States.
“In 2017, President Donald Trump moved to rescind DACA. On June 18, 2020, Chief Justice John Roberts called the move ‘arbitrary and capricious,’ and the Supreme Court sided with ‘Dreamers.’ Protection from deportation from the country I grew up in continues to be a threat. I lack paperwork that grants me citizenship.”
— Gloria Martinez-Granados
Frank Ybarra, Phoenix
Cosecha de Agave (El Jimador), 2019
Frank Ybarra, Phoenix
Pandemica, 2020
Acrylic on canvas
“Do you remember the first time you saw the Grand Canyon or another majestic landscape? I do. Do you remember sitting in the kitchen while your mother or grandmother was cooking? I do and can still smell my mom’s tortillas. Did your aunts or cousins gather to make special food that was part of your culture? I do and can still hear my tia’s (aunt’s) laughter when they gathered to make tamales before Christmas. Was there an iconic landmark in your hometown? Mine was Bill Johnson’s Big Apple restaurant in Phoenix. I am inspired to create art that captures fond memories of the people, history, and cultures that define my home state of Arizona, as well as sharing work about my Mexican roots and my Phoenix suburban heritage.”
— Frank Ybarra
Sebastiao Pereira, Phoenix
Pensive, 2006
Watercolor
“One’s resemblance to one’s parents is always strong enough without putting on their clothes”
— Juan Gris
“My father wove utilitarian bamboo baskets, and my mother wove blankets. My initial knowledge and appreciation of color came from her. My fascination with pattern came from him. I am concerned with the human condition. My portraits depict the beauty of the human faces regardless of creed or color.”
— Sebastiao Pereira
Claire A. Warden, Phoenix
No. 15 (Genetics), 2016
Piezography pigment print
Claire A. Warden, Phoenix
No. 24 (White Passing), 2019
Piezography pigment print
“Mimesis, or the imitation of the real world in art and literature, is grounded in issues of identity, the other, and the psychology of knowledge and power. The creation of this series comes at a time when the struggle to accept the unfamiliar is pervasive in our culture. When looking at these images, the urge to ask ‘What is it?’ echoes the question ‘What are you?’—a question that has been directed toward me countless times as a person of color.
“In this series, I use a camera-less photographic process on negative film, which incorporates saliva and mark-making. The negatives are scanned, and the final images are produced as large-scale pigment prints. I find this process to be uniquely qualified to address the biologic and sociocultural forces that stimulate the emergence of an identity. This process produces images that reveal certain truths in the abstract nature of identity and my personal experiences as an immigrant and a person of color, as well as the inadequacies of language to describe one’s self. Resembling systems of the natural sciences—microscopic, topographic, and celestial—the photographs allegorize the complexity of systems that make up an individual and the perception of self.”
— Claire A. Warden
Ani Tung, Tempe
Untitled (OdySea Aquarium, Scottsdale, AZ), 2017
Inkjet print
Ani Tung, Tempe
Untitled (Ostrich Parade, Chandler, AZ), 2017
Inkjet print
“As an Asian American with a multi-disciplinary visual arts background who has been living in the Valley for the past two decades, I am most intrigued with the distinctive rhythm of the passage of time here in the Wild West. Repetitive, carbon–copy days of beaming sunshine, palm trees, and saguaro cacti in the pristine blue sky have seamlessly blended days into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years. Time is always vanishing before me like a mirage. From festive gatherings to political marches and rallies, my focus is to explore the mirage–inspired moments in the contemporary desert metropolis through my lens. Just as the mirage vanishes upon increased visual proximity, my urban ‘mirage’ fades away with the passing of time. Time is of the essence as perception and reality collide; they co-evolve as the story unfolds like a blooming saguaro flower under the Southwestern starry night sky.”
— Ani Tung
Joe Ray, Scottsdale
En El Valle, 2018
Woodblock print
“I grew up in an agricultural valley in western Arizona. The jobs I worked ages 10 through 18 were on farms. The Arizona heat often exceeded 110 degrees, and the work involved labor and a lot of walking in the summer sun. This was how my friends and I spent our ‘summer vacation.’ It was not for playing in the sunshine or hanging out, but rather to help support our families. As kids, we all pitched in. Growing up in a trailer park that also served as a labor camp, where scores of migrant workers lived during seasonal work periods, offered me a unique perspective on life and formed my work ethic. This work pays homage to those who have worked the fields their entire lives, whether in the extreme heat or irrigating wet and muddy fields on cold winter nights.”
— Joe Ray
Safwat Saleem, Scottsdale
Concerned But Powerless #11, 2018
Digital print
Safwat Saleem, Scottsdale
Concerned but Powerless #7, 2017
Mixed media on Bristol board
Safwat Saleem, Scottsdale
Concerned But Powerless #1, 2017
Mixed media on Bristol board
“Having experienced my childhood in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as an immigrant from Pakistan, and then, as an adult, a two-decade–long naturalization process to become an American citizen, my art generally focusses on the idea of belonging. I try to simultaneously understand and question what it means to be a part of a community and the responsibility we might have toward those who feel they do not belong. I often combine several media like print, collage, audio, video, and interactive installations to create storytelling experiences. I often do voiceovers in my animated videos for silly characters like a bear, sheep, greeting card, and whale. Humor acts as a crucial starting point for thought-provoking discussions about underlying social issues.”
— Safwat Saleem
Hugo Medina, Phoenix
Bus in India, 2019
Acrylic, aerosol on canvas
“An observer of working-class and migrant communities around the world, I am inspired by their struggles and those that my family endured migrating to the United States. My work focuses on transcending borders by capturing the humanity and rendering the complex, sometimes conflicting, feelings of individuals striving for better lives throughout the world. I paint portraits of individuals from my travels and day-to-day encounters to connect with the ‘others’ of society on a deeper level and depict their inner struggles, raw emotions. Observing and recording the unseen of society has helped me to work through my own past trauma of growing up undocumented and afraid.
“Social connections are central to creating an authentic sense of community, and as works of art become reflections of identity and place, the ever-expanding capabilities of global communications are breaking new boundaries in human potential. Celebrating the shared identity of immigrants, this work will attempt to bridge the imagination with experience and ignite dialogue around the complex understanding of who we are—a nation of immigrants.”
— Hugo Medina
Stephen Marc, Tempe
Untitled (protest outside of a Phoenix Trump rally, street memorial for Cindy “Tig” Rivera (Las Vegas, NM) and “Rise stand with missing & murdered indigenous women” (activists at the Phoenix Women’s March), 2020
Digital montage/inkjet print
Stephen Marc, Tempe
Untitled (“Save Our Sistas” booth to raise awareness about missing black girls at the Phoenix Women’s March), 2020
Digital montage/inkjet print
“Living in the Valley of the Sun has greatly impacted my work, since Arizona is a rapidly growing battleground state and Phoenix is not only the fifth largest city in the country, but also the largest state capital city. Since 2019, I have been creating a series of digital ‘street story montages’ that explore the diversity of American culture and sense of place through public space gatherings—from protests and celebrations to the everyday. There has rarely been a time when this nation has been so divided as Trump’s term in office and the recent presidential election, so it has been important for me to address some of the societal issues and political movements during this significant period of cultural awakening. In this work, I am investigating strategies for extending the visual narrative. Some of the montages feature a single event, while others combine photographs from several different events, restructuring the social terrain and shifting temporal and spatial continuity.”
— Stephen Marc