artist statements | universal language 2025
name: Alejandra Rubio
Title: Dicho 3: Cuchillo
Medium: Screenprint
Year: 2025
Price: NFS
Web / Social Media: @alejandraaaa415
Description: “Cuchillo de Buen Filo” translates to “Knife with a good edge.” This dicho (spanish saying) was given to me in the form of a compliment from Gato, an older printmaker from the Mission and Mexico City that I greatly admire. Gato walked into “Chismosas”, a show/installation created by me and my good friend Sarai Montes, and when I asked him what he thought he told me ”…tienen cuchillo de buen filo.” “Chismosas” challenged the societal notion that chisme or gossip is not important by highlighting the political conversations that many women have in domestic spaces when engaging in chisme. We created a dining room and living room installation and covered the walls with works that would be read as political. To receive a compliment that spoke to the commentary we were making in our art instead of a compliment on the aesthetics of the show led me to think of other ways that I, as a femme, communicate this edge.
Existing in the world as a brown femme is a political experience that is consistently reflected in my appearance and artwork. It starts in the morning when I am getting ready. I choose what I want to wear for the day and think about what would make me feel the most comfortable and empowered in my body. Then I proceed to do my makeup, trying to get my eyeliner as sharp as I can get it. I outline my lips and apply my red lipstick on the days that I do not want to be messed with and Pink on days that I feel softer. I then go on to try to tame my curls by curling my bangs with rollers or allowing my curls to be free. When I take the time to get myself ready in the morning I feel more prepared to tackle the day. I carry this compliment/dicho very close to my heart and think about it when doing my makeup and creating art.
name: Leyla
Title: Ya no quieres jugar más conmigo
Medium: papier-mâché, acrylic paint
Year: 2025
Price: inquire with artist
Web / Social Media: @bylxc
Description: I like to explore the emotional landscape of my personal life journey, reflecting broader experiences faced by brown women.
My artistic vision extends into three-dimensional sculptural forms as physical examples for young girls and women like myself, encouraging them to find value and power in embracing their emotions.
Nombre: Lucy Yuan
Title: Gazing Into the Self
Medium: Digital
Year: 2022
Price: $50
Web / Social Media:
Description: The girl is a visual representation of a person who has an internal war within themselves. How do you reconcile wanting to be desperately seen by others while being terrified of being vulnerable, of bearing your soft white underbelly for others to potentially violate?
Name: Monky
Title: Various
Medium: Screenprinting
Price: $60
Description: Pedro Tolomeo Rojas, better known in the art scene as “Monky,” is a self-taught artist who began designing chicha posters in the early 1980s. His story is that of a migrant who, like many others, came to the capital to pursue his dreams, bringing with him all the color, flavor, and joy of the Peruvian Andes. His work became known thanks to the rise of chicha music in the late 1980s, a musical genre initially characterized by a fusion of existing cumbia and folklore from other regions of Peru, but above all, by the highly social and political content of its lyrics from that time.
Name: Leland Mains
Title: slow death
Medium: illustration
Year: 2024
Price: $300
Web / Social Media: https://gutterkid.com/
Description: pain, death loss and relations are what i make art about, I believe these concepts transcend spoken and written communication, being universal experiences.
NAME: Q-Tip
TiTLE: A Crown With Deep Roots
Medium: Paper
Year: 2024
Price: $5
Web / Social Media: @art.by.q.tip
Description: I believe that my pieces, poems, relate to the theme as they reflect my true inner feelings & portray some of the life that I lived so far. These poems touch upon themes like growth, communication, bonds, and hair-culture.
NAME: Leonila
Description: “What is culture to you?” To me the answer was clear: Mothers. They are the bridge to culture for future generations. They carry on heritage, language, customs, tradition, and culture. Even if they aren’t directly your biological mother, they come in the form of your auntie, big sister, cousin, grandmother, or even a friend’s parent or elder maternal figure in your life. They care and nurture. It is a sense of belonging when you feel like you’ve never had that weather that is in a home or a warm meal. They send you home with food, and give you a place of refuge. You can come from different cultures, but one thing that remains the same throughout them all, care.
Title: Momma Mims
Medium: Film
Year: 2024
Price: NFS
Web / Social Media: @mimzy817
Description: My own mother. From birth to our foreseeable future. Care was given in the ways she knew how.
Title: Tita Gina
Medium: Digital
Year: 2023
Price: NFS
Description: My mother’s sister, my tita. We met in my early 20s for the first time, but she gave me a friend, care, and warmth that I had missed growing up. Here she prepares us a meal.
Title: Tita Lola
Medium: Digital
Year: 2023
Price: NFS
Description: My great aunt. We met when I was 30; is the closest thing to knowing a grandmother I have never met. Treated me as her grandchild from our first meeting.
Name: Fiendsonfilm
Title: My Cause is My Culture
Medium: Spray Paint/Photography
Year: 2025
Price: NFS
Web / Social Media: @fiendsonfilm
Description: a homage to the people and places that shape me—my community, my friends, my family, and curator, Benji Puma.
Name: Brian Anthony Romero López
Title: Recuerdos De Papa
Medium: Silk Screen, De-Silvered Mirror, Half-toned photographs
Year: 2024
Price: NFS
Web / Social Media: @payasitos_trsites
Description: In a lot of the work that I do, I tend to incorporate my heritage alongside the idea of nostalgia by implementing imagery that often leans towards an idea of what growing up in Mexico was like or what things trigger my memory when I think of or see them. There are certain things when you’re growing up, you can’t avoid. In my case, it had to do with the traditions and practices that are passed down through generations that still continue to be present to this day, and how those sets of traditions in culture enrich the way I make work. In all of the work that I submitted, there’s a clear motif and sets of imagery that often hint at my past and also the people in my life who not only make an impact but trigger that recollection of memory that is often forgotten with time. Not only that but the idea of religion and what that triggers for me is not so much of the spirituality of it but rather the fact that it would trigger togetherness within my family at some time, alongside the symbolism of the Virgen de Guadalupe and the other Santos that we often put our loyalty upon- these are hints of what passed down traditions and customs look like for me and how they become part of culture in my work.
Name: Evelyn Martinez Garcia
Title: Perfil Anónimo
Medium: Mixed media
Year: 2025
Price: NFS
Web / Social Media: @Ambiguous__reality
Description: My work reimagines everyday objects from my culture through a lowrider aesthetic, transforming the mundane into powerful symbols of resilience, creativity, and labor. Influenced by graffiti, airbrush techniques, and intricate linework, I draw from the visual language of lowrider culture—bold colors, customized surfaces, and personal expression—to honor the craftsmanship embedded in daily life. Rooted in the legacy of Chicano street art and muralism, my practice challenges traditional ideas of artistic value while asserting presence, identity, and resistance. By merging fine art with urban visual traditions, I aim to preserve cultural memory and uplift the voices of those often unseen or overlooked.
Name: JoJo Ty
Title: Gas, Break, Dip
Medium: Lino print
Year: 2025
Price: $50
Descripcion: Sideshows were born on the streets and parking lots of East Oakland in the 1980s, and are a cornerstone of Black culture in the Bay Area. Starting off as car shows where people gathered to flex their vehicles, sideshows became the go-to spot. Cars are a form of expression — it brought a sense of freedom for the community and gathered the neighborhood together in pride. People got to show off all of the hard work they put into their cars. Souped-up Chevelles, Firebirds, Camaros, Sevilles, and other classics were a common sight at these gatherings.
Sideshows evolved into cars doing stunts such as donuts, ghostriding, and burnouts.
Bay Area hip-hop became the soundtrack. Oakland rap legend, Richie Rich’s 1990 song “Side Show” perfectly illustrates what goes down at the scene. The Hyphy movement emerged in the Bay Area in the late 90s/early 2000s and brought even more flare by making people go dumb at the sideshows.
City officials have tried to implement ordinances to punish people who participate, Oakland police led crackdowns, and news media outlets tried to demonize them. Sideshows are an integral part of Oakland’s (and the Bay overall) counterculture and are an act of resistance. Hearing the screech of tires late at night outside my window reminds me that there are still folks keeping the culture alive. It reminds me that while gentrification has hit San Francisco and Oakland, we are still here.
Made in @queerancestorsproject
Name: Joseph Peralta
Title: Embryonic Devourment
Medium: Oil on Panel
Year: 2025
Price: $200
Web / Social Media: @jhperalta96
Description: We all see the release of energy from music expressed either from the crowd’s enjoyment, the captivating beat, composition of the music or the style and conduction of the musicians on stage. It all centers around a culture of the focused area of enjoyment for music. We all gather to see these shows where memory is selective of specific images. But those images can be easily remembered then the recollection of how well they played on stage. The music comes and goes. My paintings are stills of the more significant memories I have of specific metal shows I attended. The memory of how well they performed on stage has drifted away, but the stage presence of the performers and the compacted feeling being in the crowd is what I remember the most.
Name: Rook Zhang
Title: 4 murmurs
Medium: Screen print on fabric with rope and bells
Year: 2025
Price: NFS
Web / Social Media: @village.fool
Description: This piece references Chinese 变脸 (Biànliǎn, face change) performance. The art of 变脸 involves rapidly switching between colorful masks to emphasize a character’s changing emotions in Chinese opera. Traditionally, this technique is closely guarded by family lines and passed from father to son. Women and folks outside of mainland China have only recently been permitted to train in 变脸. The Chinese text reads 喂我 (wèi wǒ, feed me), 睡我 (shuì wǒ, fuck me), 看见我 (kànjiàn wǒ, witness me), and 释放我 (shìfàng wǒ, release me).
Name: Daniel Kong
Title: matcha cafe maiko
Medium: film photograph
Year: 2024
Price: $100
Web / Social Media: @danjkon.lol
Description: ‘matcha cafe maiko’ is a set of photographs I took in San Francisco’s Chinatown. I grew up coming to San Francisco every weekend so my parents could take my sister and me to Vietnamese restaurants, shop at Chinese grocery stores, see Asian people. In Marin, where I grew up, there were mostly only white people. San Francisco ended up being one of the only ways my sister and I were inoculated with a sense of Asian community and culture beyond experiences with my family. I’m curious about how I experience being diasporic Asian versus my parents. I feel protective of my pan-Asian identity. So not only am I curious (frustrated) of how tourists consume those same communities that ended up becoming essential to my understanding of my own identity, I also wonder how my experience of pan-Asian culture differs from the white people that consume the same cultural elements that I do.
Name: Naye Rosas
Title: Between Suns and Tears
Medium: Lino Print
Year: 2025
Price: Not for sale
Web / Social Media: @chulo222_
Description:This piece is an exploration of my relationship with both femininity and masculinity. As a genderqueer person, I exist in a constant flow between these two energies. Through this work, I reflect on the fluidity within myself and how these dualities coexist as one.
The headpiece on the masculine figure is inspired by Huēhuecoyōtl (Way-way-coh-yoh-tl), a pre-Columbian god of art, music, ceremonial dance, and adolescence. Their name means the “old coyote” from Mixtec stories. As a shapeshifter with partners across genders, Huēhuecoyōtl embodies fluidity and transformation, qualities I deeply resonate with. I also incorporated a sun to symbolize masculine energy, representing strength, assertiveness, and a source of light.
The feminine figure, in contrast, is covered and protected, representing my feminine rage and how that rage is used as protection from the world. I drew a symbol on the bottom to represent my role as the eldest in my family. The symbol leading represents the role I feel like I take in my family dynamic, alongside tears to acknowledge the emotional weight that comes with it.
Both figures are drawn in a connected circle, illustrating the cyclical nature of my experience—where masculinity and femininity are not opposites but part of the same whole, constantly shifting and interwoven into who I am.
Title: La Jaula de Oro
Medium: Ceramics
Year: 2025
Price: Not for sale
Description: This piece was inspired by one of my dad’s favorite songs titled “La Jaula de Oro” by Los tigres del Norte. Which translates into The golden cage, this song talks about making the heart wrenching choice to leave your country to pursue stability and the outcomes of that decision. It speaks on longing, grief, and feeling a disconnection after being in the US for so long. As a first generation Mexican American I bore witness to this deep pain that my parents carry and saw their resilience and perseverance to survive.
I dedicate this piece to all immigrants in the US but more specifically my dad. I will not know what it feels like to make the choice of leaving your country, your land, your friends, your language, and your comfort in search of security.
I pray for all immigrants who are currently making the journey and for those who are still healing and grieving.
Fuck boarders, Fuck nations.
The US stole land from indigenous people.
America was not discovered, it was colonized.
Name: Tessa Stapp
Title: Trans Abolitionist Georgraphies
Medium: Linocut print
Year: 2025
Price: $65
Web / Social Media: @printmakingdyke
Description: Culture to me, is about how we are bound together even through our layers of difference. Culture is created through resisting hegemonic narratives, and embracing our histories. Taking part in culture and reclaiming our histories are interlocking ideas.
Name: Crystal Cañas
Title: my first film roll
Medium: 35 mm photography
Year: 2023
Price: NFS
Web / Social Media: @ccryystaall
Description: My piece represents the open call them being all about culture because it represents something that captures and expresses the feeling of my culture. To me, my culture is everything that raised me and I grew up into loving and cherishing The people and the community come together and make events and everyone has a good time with each other, and I feel like anything like that represents culture.
Name: Soupfuzz
Title: Badass Butches by the Bridge: Thirteen Chhēng-khò͘-ê of Qiáotóu (File name- Sample 3)
Medium: linocut
Year: 2023
Price: NFS
Web / Social Media: @soupfuzz
Description: For me, culture is both inherited and created. My racial/ethnic identity as both Chinese and Taiwanese, working class upbringing, along with my queer and trans identity, are all equally important and connected. These inherited histories & lineages are fundamental parts of me and thus, my art too. However, displacement from those histories, lands, and people, also requires me to constantly recreate and negotiate those different layers of culture.
Name: Stephen Longoria
Title: TIGERS BLOOD
Medium: ACRYLIC ON WOOD
Year: 2024
Price: $569
Description: Tiger Head
Name: valeria olguin
Title: Tomatina
Medium: Acrylic Gouache on Wood
Year: 2025
Price: $350
Web / Social Media: @mevaleymevale
Description: A verse from “Sin un Amor” by Los Panchos designed in a rotulo style inspired by my homeland of Mexico City and the music of my elders. My use of the romantic verse in rotulo lettering is a play on highlighting the dramatics behind popular culture in México.
Name: sarai montes
Name: sarai montes
Title: sol y luna
Medium: Lithography
Year: 2024
Price: $150
Web / Social Media: @savitears
Description: sol y luna is a lithography print created during my last visit to the motherland, Oaxaca, that personifies the sun and moon. communities and people globally hold collective and personal relationships and understandings of the sun and moon, two symbols which can reflect ideas of duality, balance, cycles and reciprocity.
Name: ck verastegui
Title: Voices of San Francisco: A videographer journey through culture and connections
Medium: Video
Web / Social Media: @ck_verastegui
Description: As a Peruvian migrant living in San Francisco, I’ve had the privilege of working over the past six years with a range of venues, organizations, and collaborators across the Bay Area to create video projects that tell meaningful, community-centered stories. These experiences have deepened my love for filmmaking and allowed me to use my craft as a way to uplift diverse voices and cultural narratives. It has been an honor to give back to the community that has welcomed me, and I remain committed to using my work to celebrate, support, and strengthen the vibrant spirit of San Francisco and beyond.
Como migrante peruano residente en San Francisco, he tenido el privilegio de trabajar durante los últimos seis años con diversos espacios, organizaciones y colaboradores en el Área de la Bahía para crear proyectos de video que narran historias significativas y centradas en la comunidad. Estas experiencias han profundizado mi amor por el cine y me han permitido usar mi arte para promover diversas voces y narrativas culturales. Ha sido un honor retribuir a la comunidad que me ha acogido, y mantengo mi compromiso de usar mi trabajo para celebrar, apoyar y fortalecer el vibrante espíritu de San Francisco y más allá.
Name: Miles Moreira
Title: Bay Area Timelapses
Medium: Digital 4k Video
Video length: 1:10
Years: 2023-2024
Web / Social Media: cinescopephotos.com / IG: @cinescopephotos
Description: An experimental project shot with a mirrorless camera. Creating nighttime timelapses in Oakland and San Francisco, capturing the movement of both cities.
Name: cholo huk
Title: i.a (identidad artistica)
Medium: Digital Art
Year: 2025
Web / Social Media: @cholohuk
Description: In the age of artificial intelligence, doing something that requires time, concentration, and work is an epic adventure.
Name: mind haze
Title: Transmutando el camino
Medium: Photography / Digital Animation
Year: 2025
Web / Social Media: @mindhazetrip
Description:The path of life is built with moments, people, places… a whole sharing experience that transmutes the way we see the world and the meaning we have for it. For me, traveling away from home and my blood family for almost four years was something that generated a catharsis in my being. Sometimes fun… Sometimes scary… but always grateful for the chance to portray the process thru photography. Learning to live with new people every day, to adapt to the path in order to continue, to believe in who I am and to trust, especially that… Trusting that the universe is putting each piece in its place for us. Where the heart is the compass and love is the driving force.
Name: ayoade balogun
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Year: 2025
Web / Social Media:
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Name: lila chavez
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Name: monfucat
Title: el barrio
Medium: Acrylics on wall
Year: 2025
Title: wachuma chavin
Medium: Screenprinting
Year: 2024
Web / Social Media: monfucat.com / @monfucat1
Description: It is the representation of the “Cabezas Clavas” of the Chavin culture (Peru 1200 BC-400 BC) transforming from a Human to a feline through the intake of Wachuma, better known as the San Pedro cactus.
Es la representación de las cabezas clavas de la cultura Chavin (Perú 1200 a. C.-400 a. C.) transformándose de un ser Humano a un felino a través de la ingesta del Wachuma, mejor conocido como el cactus San Pedro.
Name: lagrimaya
Title: untitled
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