The Cerritos College Art Gallery is currently showcasing the art of three different artists, Dwora Fried, Xavier Cázares Cortéz and Jynx Prado.
An artist talk was held in the Fine Arts building on Feb. 6, where each artist gave a presentation that went over their lives and the different art pieces they created throughout the years.
Fried was the first to give a presentation, she is the child of a holocaust survivor and her art pieces.
Her art consists of sculptural spaces within wooden boxes, which are meant to bring to mind what it was like for her growing up.
Fried is an assemblage artist who uses random figures she gets from flea markets along with pictures of her life and family which she implements into her art pieces.
Chris Diaz, an industrial design major said, “I think it’s really eclectic, I like the DIY nature, the diorama approach of it, it’s very cool and nostalgic with all the toys.”
Prado went over what their experience was like as a Mexi-Salvi American and as a burlap artist and they describe their art as, “Scarecrow but flipped it to the 21st century.”
Similar to Fried, Prado’s art gave them a form of self-therapy.
“Art pretty much gave me that type of self-therapy to be able to speak about my own ideas and then it also gave me ideas like how to think to myself,” Prado said.
Things that motivate Prado include challenging themselves by doing more of what someone who criticizes their art doesn’t like or working with material that’s hard to work with.
“I feel that having the opportunity to put something out there in the world that I don’t see would motivate me because when it comes to burlap, you don’t really see much burlap art.”
Prado also likes using religious references in their work, which is how they came up with the title for their exhibit “Snow White and The Seven Deadly Sins.“
“I was pushed to know that type of stuff, I had a very religious grandmother who was very heavy on religion,” Prado said.
“When it came to Snow White, there’s a lot of different iterations of snow white… but the titles are always similar but I wanted to play that idea, the seven deadly sins, the seven dwarfs.”
Prado’s art is on display in the campus Window Dressing near the entrance of the Fine Arts building.
Cortéz has been actively showcasing his art for about 35 years and what motivates him to make his art is the feeling of authenticity.
“It’s what’s most authentic to me in life, making art feels authentic to me, it’s not something that I have to necessarily work at wanting to do.”
Cortéz art pieces consist of hundreds of different objects which take on their own personal meaning.
Lucien Cortez, a psychology major said, “It’s very interesting the way he incorporates different objects
“It’s like almost objects that are found in the junk drawer and you look at them and the way he has them on a pedestal almost shows certain significance to certain objects.”
James MacDevitt set up the art exhibit, Director/Curator of the art gallery, he reached out to the artists and also helped some of them come up with the titles for their exhibit.
Fried’s and Cortéz’s art will remain on display in the art gallery until March 10 but Prado’s art will remain in the Window Dressing until March 17.
