Shizu Saldamando
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Our two exhibitions on contemporary Asian American identity close with a visit by Shizu Saldamando. A featured artist in Portraiture Now: Asian American Portraits of Encounter, Saldamando depicts how American social spaces are the laboratories for new ways of being. Her work playfully suggests that race, gender, and ethnicity act as white noise to the scene at hand; audible, yet not identifiable. Using her friends as subjects, she sees her pieces as visual biographies that capture the energy of youthful experimentation and the freedom of malleable identity categories.
Don’t miss your last chance to see Portraiture Now and kip fulbeck: part asian, 100% hapa, to join thousands of Houstonians who already have answered the question “what are you,” and to hear from one of the most distinctive young artists working today.
A reception will follow the program.
About Shizu Saldamando
Born to parents of Japanese and Mexican descent, Saldamando resides in Los Angeles but grew up in San Francisco. She attended the University of California, Los Angeles, for her undergraduate work and received an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. About arriving in Los Angeles, she says: “Growing up in the Mission district in San Francisco, it was predominately a hip-hop culture. Here in Los Angeles, I’d go to shows or house parties, and it would be all Latino kids listening to the Cure and the Smiths. In L.A., I felt normal for the first time.” Saldamando’s meticulous collaged paintings offer the viewer a subtlety of influences to ponder.
Supported by The Brown Foundation, Inc., Houston Arts Alliance, City of Houston, The Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts, Bank of America, and United Airlines – Official Airline of Asia Society Texas Center.