In recent years a new nucleus of artists, sharing background in suburban Los Angeles, has been developing quietly—or maybe it’s just the respect appropriate to the founding of a new movement. Between Pomona and Inglewood you take in the studios of all manner of Angelinx artists, who are dealing with topics as current and engaged as immigration, gender, history, the class struggle, drug trafficking, all without ever forgetting their ancestry and values, their identity. There is a discernible pattern in their work, the same for all of them: a kind of song to freedom—in the truly authentic style of the Chilean poet and singer Victor Jara—in works that recall how families have suffered in the attempt to attain a better future and gain the right to live in peace. 

The images presented will not leave any viewer unaffected, nor can any keen explorer of new trends in international contemporary art be unmoved, and through this group exhibition we are inviting you to keep an eye on this lively and exciting artistic hotspot. This exhibition seems particularly relevant in the current context, as winds of change blow across the United States, and where it appears that the country’s politics in the coming years will hopefully find recognition for those who have been considered as minorities until now, respecting diversity and defending equality. In the longer term, this shift will also probably be felt beyond the USA’s borders, as with so many others that start there, although, as these artists make clear, there is still a long way to go and it will not be easy.

In his most recent installations, Rafa Esparza (b. 1981) gives special prominence to the technique of adobe, producing adobe brick with his father, who used this method to build his first house in Mexico before emigrating to the United States. They follow a local and indigenous tradition, and Esparza uses the adobe as the painting surface for his recent work. A multi-disciplinary artist, his interests range from history to personal narratives, and in his performances he criticizes ideologies, power structures, and binary forms of identity. He has exhibited at MASS MoCA (2019), the Whitney Museum’s Biennial (2017), and the Hammer Museum (2016).

The work of Alfonso Gonzalez Jr. (b. 1989) draws strongly on his close observation of his father’s professional skill as a painter of commercial advertisements, hand-painted signs that still feature in the city, faded images telling family stories tied to work. By incorporating fragments from his immediate surroundings, mixed in turn with childhood experiences, he documents and reassesses the neighborhood. With exhibitions at galleries in California, he has also shown in Berlin and Tokyo.

Patrick Martinez (b. 1980) is known for his neons, fluorescent signs recalling those that light up the city’s store fronts at night, but with social and political messages in place of advertising slogans. He also creates paintings that resemble pastels, commemorating leaders, activists, and thinkers such as the abolitionist reformer Frederick Douglass or the journalist Ruben Salazar, which feature in the show. He took part in the Triennial at El Museo del Barrio in New York, and his work was included in Beyond the Streets, which was exhibited in Los Angeles (2018) and New York (2019).

Gabriella Sanchez (b. 1988) has worked as a graphic designer and illustrator, experience that she integrates into her painting. She explores the space between Mexican and North American cultures, between center and margins, personal and socio-cultural. In her works she reformulates signs to reconsider how the meaning of words and images is created, conveyed, and interpreted in today's visual culture. The flag she creates tells us about her relationship with this symbol, made up of cloth from garments associated with her community and a photograph with social content. Her work is part of the collections at LACMA, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, and the JP Morgan & Chase Collection, among others.

Rooted in modern European painting, with echoes of German Neo-Expressionism, the work of Alex Becerra (b. 1989) encompasses the traditional genres of self-portrait, the female nude, still life, and genre scenes, into which he introduces context-specific objects. His compositions are characterized by their saturation, the layers of paint vibrating on the surface in a physical way, pure energy and vitality, excess and provocation. His work has been included in the Venice Beach Biennial at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and the Pacific Standard Time project.

The visual language of Jaime Muñoz (b. 1987) focuses on aspects such as identity, the commodification of labor, religion, the critique of Latin American colonialism and the myth of Modernism’s progress, and the relationship of ancestors to the experiences of the present. His most recent paintings combine various techniques and influences ranging from the Latin in California, to pre-Columbian religious iconography and mythology, including symbols of capitalist modernity, such as car culture, design in everyday objects. Highlights were his participation in the Pacific Standard Time project in 2017 and his solo show in the Focus LA section of Frieze Los Angeles 2020.