Products of Empire

Born to a mother and father from the Deep South, who followed the Great Black Migration west seeking better opportunities, Samuel M. Pace’s talents were given a chance to flourish. Encouraged by both parents to express his creative abilities, he continued developing his skills throughout high school where he earned a Fine Arts scholarship. In 1989 Sam moved to Europe where he began developing his current style, using Jazz and Blues as the subject matter. His unique interpretation comingles the moods and sounds of contemporary and 1920s Black Renaissance Jazz and Blues artists into a visual narrative. His works vary in several different mediums from acrylic on canvas, wood, and collage to discarded recyclable objects.

Exhibition: Products of Empire

Instagram: @sam.pace.7

Allison Honeycutt is a fine artist based in Los Angeles, California and Graduated from NSCAD University with a BFA in 2003 and went on to get a Post-Baccalaureate in studio art from MIU in 2013. She works in a variety of media, particularly fiber sculpture/ sculpture, works on paper and installation. Her work is defined by taking pleasure in the exquisiteness of imperfections and of blending the profound with the absurd. Every Empire leave some grief in its wake, even those that benefit from the Empire will experience grief when they realize what they had given up in order to flourish, as well as grief when the empire itself starts falls.

Exhibition: Products of Empire

Instagram: @allisonhoneycutthunt

I am a mixed media artist whose exhibits include the California African American Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the LA Art Show, and the USC Fisher Museum of Art. I grew up in New York City, a child riding the damp subway and trudging to school through the freezing slush without a winter coat. When the other children lined up with money to buy lunch, I hid on the floor of the bathroom with my strawberry yogurt and drew pictures and phrases to avoid thinking about the hot soup out there. Today I am drawing pictures with phrases; I am still that child. Now when I see desperate families, especially refugees, my response is personal. My path led through drawing, painting, filmmaking, writing, sculpture and installation to creating a graphic novel that continues my life-long dedication to humanitarian issues.

Exhibition: Products of Empire

Instagram: @pamdouglasart

Zeal Harris is an Arts & African American Studies Lecturer at California State University at Fullerton, has taught at Otis College of Art & Design, and was recently the Arts Alive Artist-In-Residence at San Diego State University. Harris creates urban-vernacular visual stories. Her influences are highly eclectic and include; Southern Black folk art, Asian scroll paintings, Persian miniatures, Mexican ex-votos, and Afrofuturist literature. Currently, she is working on two series of artworks. One project, Pantheon of Akatas is about ancestral-mother-maroons on the brink of ethnogenesis while on a quest for promised land. Her other project, I Be Livin’ Black Love consists of black-feminist themed book-style illustrations of contemporary life.

Exhibition: Products of Empire

Instagram: @artsyzeal

Born in Sacramento, CA and raised in Los Angeles, Sharon Louise Barnes is a fifth generation Californian, a descendant of black pioneers who came to California in the mid-1800’s when it was admitted to the union as a free state. Barnes is an interdisciplinary visual artist who uses Social Abstraction to blend her formal and aesthetic considerations with cultural and social concerns. Barnes’ haptic paintings, sculptures and installations investigate a broad range of cut, collaged, and assembled processes that evoke fracture and reparation, layer and overlap, struggle and resilience against the backdrop of race, gender, and power in America. Embracing metaphor and symbolism, her works have incorporated hanging threads, repeating ideographic shapes, elements of chaos and moments of sparkle in her evolving visual vernacular and exploration of poetic materiality.

Exhibition: Products of Empire

Instagram: @sharonbarnes4702

Morgan M. Barajas is a Los Angeles based visual art alchemist strongly influenced by Romanticism, Surrealism, and Expressionism. He is fascinated by the interplay of the spiritual and the physical, and aims to render this often invisible relationship in his work. Originally trained in Cinematic arts, Morgan was inspired by filmmaker Akira Kurosawa to paint his own storyboards. What followed was an all consuming love affair with visual art marking, that enlightened his approach to creating. Utilizing oil paint, pastels, charcoal, ink, graphite, and sometimes organic matter in his work, every piece is a unique alchemical experiment all its own.

Exhibition: Products of Empire, Spring Benefit and Art Auction, Locals Only

I am an artist who works with fabric, thread and a home sewing machine to create contemporary quilts that are non-representational abstractions. My pieces are driven by personal pleasure that meticulous work gives me, labor that requires time and dedication, as well as the challenge that results in seeing what large dimensions can be reached or how much accumulation I can generate from these small actions and simple materials. I have also always incorporated texture into my work, including ceramics and glass. I want to create paintings, but without using materials associated with western art history and challenge the idea of what paintings can be- what can be called a painting.

Exhibition: Products of Empire

Instagram: @artlovely

Kiara Aileen Machado is a contemporary artist born in Lynwood who depicts and explores the construction and freedom of identity, femininity, and culture in her work. She received her BFA in Painting and Drawing from California State University Long Beach in 2018. She has had the honor of participating in many groundbreaking events that have been pivotal to the foundation of Central American communities: first ever Central American and Caribbean Colloquium at Cal State LA, first art show highlighting Central American artists at UCLA, and Duke University. Her artwork has been seen in museums across the United States, and recently at Band of Vices as part of the ‘In the Paint’ art initiative headed by the Los Angeles Lakers to identify and support contemporary LA-based artists. She has recently exhibited work internationally in Frankfurt, Berlin, and Paris.

Exhibition: Products of Empire, L.A. Abstracted

Growing up, I always found a way to be creative and work with my hands. I graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in Psychology and began my career in the field of genetics and family planning. While this is an industry that I am still passionate and proud of, it wasn’t long before I realized I needed to dig deeper. Shortly thereafter, I made the jump to the industry of Interior Design and Custom Furniture, thus reigniting my creative passion. Now located in Los Angeles, CA, I work full time in the Fine Art industry, and come home to paint and create for myself. My typical mediums are acrylic and ink on canvas and paper.

Exhibition: Products of Empire

Instagram: @katttmandooo

Jonah Elijah is a Houston, Texas native now working in Los Angeles. He received his BA in studio art from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2017 and a MFA from Claremont Graduate University in 2020. Jonah Elijah’s work encapsulates black life in America and addresses controversial issues that actively affect the African American community. Using materials to explore economic inequality, displacement, or human rights Elijah’s artist practice embraces discomforting realities. Whether in his paintings or installations, Jonah layers his work with coded language offering an abstracted or representational view of what it’s like to be black today.

Exhibition: Products of Empire

Instagram: @jonah.elijah

Evan Mendel is a painter/muralist born in 1988, and raised in the Valley just outside of Los Angeles CA.  Evan grew up being influenced by cartoons, skateboarding, surfing and graffiti.  These influences led him to pursue his artistic ambitions further into his late teens and early 20’s, experimenting with making abstract and figurative based paintings.  Without any formal art education, Evan was self-taught through trial, error, and observation.  He has since painted several large-scale murals in Ventura, CA and Los Angeles.

Exhibition: Products of Empire

Instagram: @awonderfulmistake

Elmer Guevara was born and raised in Los Angeles and is currently working bicoastally in New York City. In the 1980s, his parents fled a war-torn El Salvador finding refuge in the City of Angels. Along with South Central’s vibrant energy and the culture his parents brought with them, he became inspired to reflect on his upbringing and the hybridity of cultures. He often constructs narratives by sampling family photos from his youth, reframing compositions that dialogue about identity and concepts of inter-generational trauma.

Exhibition: Products of Empire

Instagram: @3lmski1

I began my artistic journey after my family moved to San Jose, California and now I have been working professionally as an artist for more than thirty-five years. I possess a BFA in Sculpture and Ceramics from the California College of Arts and Crafts and an MFA in Sculpture from Claremont Graduate University. My work is included in many private collections worldwide as well as being featured in numerous television shows, independent films, books and magazines and media publications. I have lectured and facilitated workshops in museums, art galleries, colleges and schools throughout the country. My greatest reward comes from sharing my lifelong creative journey to the world!

Exhibition: Products of Empire

Instagram: @chukesart

The first seven years of my life were spent in a remote, rural region known as Tierra Caliente in Michoacan State, Mexico. My family and I emigrated to Los Angeles in 1975 and it was, in many ways, akin to traveling from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, given the rudimentary conditions to which we were accustomed. This experience – of leaving one land for another, having to constantly redefine what it means to be a human being, a man, a part of a community – is a constant and central theme within my work. I am interested in narratives and vignettes about the seemingly discarded or unimportant moments that shape our culture. I believe that these discounted moments harbor importance and, in isolating these moments, I endeavor to stimulate reflection.

Exhibition: Products of Empire

Instagram: @abelalejandre