Ave 50 Studio will present a solo exhibition of new mixed media political satire works by artist Linda Vallejo entitled Make "Em All Mexican curated by Dr. Karen Mary Davalos.

Dr. Karen Mary Davalos, Exhibition Curator, is an art historian and author. She serves as chair and associate professor of Chicana/o Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. She states about this new series of works, "From one perspective, Vallejo has stolen, denied, and suppressed white representational power, and with a brush stroke, she has recoded it brown. Vallejo's series is quietly disorienting, fiercely defies closure, and invokes uncertainty. Viewers have the sense that Vallejo is not yet finished with her social critique. Racial coding, she reminds us, is only skin-deep."

Armando Durón, Collector - Make 'Em All Mexican are reconstructed memories-a life as we had hoped it had been. This work represents memories hidden in the deepest recesses of our minds evoking an almost visceral reaction of pain in memories repressed. After the initial euphoria of seeing the world we had wished for - true emotion sets in, and it packs a wild punch."

Kathy Gallegos, Director, Ave 50 Studio - "In her newest work, Make 'Em All Mexican, Vallejo takes a leap into the conceptual where she explores questions of race. On the surface these images are outright funny - but upon reflection they raise many questions. What do they say about exclusion? Who is being excluded? Are we all one people? We encourage you to join us in this dialog because, after all, democracy is about freedom of speech."

Linda Vallejo - "Make 'Em all Mexican is biting political satire that de-constructs time-honored images to create new cultural icon. The viewer is cajoled into envisioning an imaginary and wished-for political and social status and then to forced to face the reality. Wickedly funny, these images make the viewer laugh and then apologize for 'thinking it's a joke." This new work carries a strong electric charge - to some they are hyperpolitical, for others they are emotional portals to a past remembered and sometimes forgotten, and to others they are just down right hilarious."

Vallejo was recently included in the publication The California/International Arts Foundation's new encyclopedia L.A. Rising: SoCal Artists Before 1980 written by Lyn Kienholz and supported in part by the Getty Foundation. She will be included in UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center's L.A. Xicano Mapping Another LA: The Chicano Art Movement curated by Pilar Tompkins Rivas scheduled to open at the Fowler Museum, Fall 2011, and Doin' It in Public: Art and Feminism at the Woman's Building in October 2011 at the Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art. Both exhibitions are a part of the Getty Southern California Research initiative Pacific Standard Time: Art in Los Angeles 1945-1980.

A Full Color Catalog will accompany the exhibition.

Press Release

Make 'Em All Mexican, Blurb Books, April 2011

Linda Vallejo, "Make 'em All Mexican," opening at Studio 50. Photos by Peter Rashkin

Make 'Em All Mexican: Nor All Freed From Want
Mixed media installation recycled posters, gouache, whiteout, and original silkscreen print
28" x 14"

Make 'Em All Mexican: Nor All Freed From Want (detail)