#FOTOSEPTIEMBRE USA 2022 #SanAntonioTX #CeliaAlvarezMuñoz #RuizHealyArt
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

CELIA ÁLVAREZ MUÑOZ (Arlington, TX)
Semejantes Personajes – Significant Personalities
Curated by Patricia Ruiz-Healy, Ph.D.
Ruiz-Healy Art
201-A East Olmos Drive, San Antonio, TX 78212
(210) 804-2219 | info@ruizhealyart.com | https://www.ruizhealyart.com
Opening reception: Thursday, September 22, 2022, 6 – 8 pm
Exhibit on display: September 22 – October 22, 2022
Artist talk: Saturday, September 24, 2022, 1 pm
Viewing hours: Wed – Sat, 11 am – 4 pm
Contact: Ellie Falcon (210) 804-2219 | ellie@ruizhealyart.com
Free and open to the public

Celia Álvarez Muñoz is a Mexican American conceptual multimedia artist who is known for her photography, painting, installations, and public art, as well as for her writing. Born in El Paso, Texas, Álvarez Muñoz’s work addresses the dichotomy of living between two cultures. Common themes in her practice include Catholicism, Mexican American experience, the past versus the present, and English versus Spanish language. The artist incorporates themes of family and “communal memories” in her pieces. She uses text and images in her work to explore the ambiguous signs and signifiers where cultures meet and to communicate stories of American history, culture, and society.

In the artist’s own words “this collection of forty-one portraits of San Antonio Latino visual artists is, yet, another experiment: a courtship between old and new technologies, and old and new friends.” For Álvarez Muñoz, the photography process and the distinctive medium of choice were significant. Álvarez Muñoz explains, “for Semejantes Personajes, I reached back to the Holga’s unique, flexible and unpredictable format as the perfect tool. Kin to an imperfect, edited grainy movie film strip, it allowed to cease a moment, and was still open for inspection once it started a digital dialogue.” Artists from the gallery roster, such as Chuck Ramirez, César Augusto Martínez, Ethel Shipton and Jesse Amado are included.

The artist has spent significant time in San Antonio and that has given her the opportunity to become familiar with the city and the vibrant artistic community. She says, “I did several multimedia public art commissions, two of which were for the City of San Antonio: The Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center Expansion and El Rio Habla, a park for The River Link Project across Main Plaza. Thus, I became well acquainted with its vibrant group of visual artists. Nowhere in Texas does such a community of Latino artists exist! The city dichotomously retains a small-town historical ambiance within progressive economic expansion. These characteristics, I find well manifested in the work and personalities of this group of fellow artists.” Some of the artists are no longer with us, like Mel Casas, Alberto Mijangos, Adan Hernandez, Alezx de León, and Chuck Ramirez, which makes the exhibit even more meaningful. Other artists included are Haydee Suescum, David Zamora Casas, Vincent Valdez, Leticia Huerta, Maricela Sanchez, and Rolando Briseño, among others.

About Ruiz-Healy Art

Founded in San Antonio, TX in 2006 Ruiz-Healy Art represents an international roster of artists and places emphasis on Latinx and Latin American artists, as well as working with prominent Texas-based artists. Biculturalism and identity discourse plays an important role in several of the artists that we collaborate with. In the spring of 2019, Ruiz-Healy Art opened a gallery space in the Upper East Side of New York City that works in tandem with the San Antonio gallery as a platform to disseminate the artist’s work. The continuous investments in these underrepresented areas have remained a longstanding signature of the gallery program.