Eight local photographers are converging to explore the theme of family in an upcoming exhibit at the Irvine Fine Arts Center.
The show, curated by Mexican-American photographer William Camargo, is set to run throughout March.
The exhibition will be on display from March 2 to May 18.
Camargo, who is making his curatorial debut, wanted to bring together Southern California photographers and offer some emerging photographers the opportunity to exhibit through Reencuentros: Seeing You Again.
“I wanted to uplift others with great work that haven’t shown in an exhibition before, or folks that are finishing undergrad or graduate school,” said Camargo.
Voice of OC’s Julie Leopo is among the photographers showing their work in an exhibition space for the first time.
Leopo – who currently teaches photojournalism at Chapman University – has worked as Voice of OC’s Director of Photography since 2019. She has practiced photography since her childhood, starting first with photographing her family.
“My work began with the documentation of my family and the city of Santa Ana,” said Leopo. “They were the first to let their guard down around me when it came to my camera, so it is wonderful to showcase their humanity and stories in this exhibit”
“It feels full circle for me.”
Julie Leopo
Some of the photographers explore the joy and pain that comes with family.
“At this point, there is a lot of generational trauma that we are navigating through,” said Alkaid Ramirez, one of eight photographers showcased in the exhibit.
“These voices need to be elevated in order for this progression in our circles to continue. That progression comes through the art medium, to put the words into a picture so to speak. These scenes demonstrate our shared experiences.”
Gabriel González, who will be showing five photos in the upcoming exhibit, explores death in his work.
“My work explores trauma, death, questioning my own feelings, challenging the machismo Latin-American male and not shutting my feelings down, and exploring the space without my brother and sister,” González said.
“Art therapy is a real thing.”
Gabriel González
Valentina Aproda Maurer, who is showing six self-portraits and one photographic collage sculpture in the exhibition, examines the American dream in the context of a home environment.
“The sculpture, which is called House Piñata, has themes of home and the American dream,” she said. “I was thinking about the American dream as the equivalent to a prize, and the ideal home being an out of reach prize. It is also about loss and longing, because I made this piece shortly after I lost my childhood home. That really shaped my work… trying to rebuild what was lost and reconnect.”
“Our home really shapes us.”
Valentina Aproda Maurer
The exhibition’s roster features photographers with diverse cultural backgrounds.
“When I was growing up, I didn’t see any representation,” said Iris Huerta, one photographer featured in the exhibition. “I didn’t know about many Latino artists for a long time… it’s important to have that exposure and to have that be known to people. We have important art and an important community that is worth sharing.”
Huerta will be showing eight pieces in the upcoming exhibition, and has been practicing photography for 20 years.
Jamil Baldwin, who will be showing four pieces in the exhibition, echoed Huerta’s sentiments about representation.
“Coming from a working class family, photography and fine arts weren’t even things I had thought about through my adolescence,” said Baldwin. “Even after graduating high school and college, I wasn’t exposed to fine art or how it existed until much much later.”
Some of Baldwin’s pieces explore love and grief through the scope of a group of friends that experienced death within their group.
Camargo began working on the exhibition alongside Virginia Arce, Exhibitions Program Curator at the Irvine Fine Arts Center, a year in advance.
“I liked the idea of opening up the idea of family in an exhibit,” said Arce, who approached Camargo with the opportunity to curate the exhibit after featuring his photography in an earlier exhibit. “Family is so many things. It’s positive, negative, complicated.”
Camargo also works as a lecturer in photography at California State University Fullerton, UC San Diego and Pasadena City College.
“It was important to think about family from the perspective of the artist,” said Camargo. “Family could be a chosen family. Some of the images don’t even have people.”
Arce and Camargo feel that many of the works also explore materiality.
“The photos without people speak to the sensibility of home… like a tablecloth, or something that reminds you of that place or person,” she said.
“The material is a feeling,” Camargo added. “It is a dynamic and expansive way of exploring family.”
This materiality is explored in photographer Rodrigo Morales’ pieces, which discuss the industrialization of his home, the Inland Empire.
“My pieces explore the themes of labor in reference to the family,” Morales said. “My Backyard is based on the growing logistics industry in the Inland Empire which has become the default labor opportunity for families in the Inland Empire, including that of my own… As of 2024, over 4,000 individual warehouses exist in the area, many of which are less than half a mile from schools and homes. Families of the Inland Empire are forced to sleep where they work, unable to escape the monotony of these logistic centers.”
“The only place left for these warehouses to spread are in our own backyards.”
Morales’ other works explore local history, and their family’s origins as agricultural laborers in Mexico and California.
The work of photographer Sadie Scott also speaks to industrialization, and its impact on communities.
“I ground my work in land and place, so these pieces explore the theme of family by asking how a notion of home changes generation after generation,” she said. “What memories do the walls, grass, soil, and space hold? What does the land inherit from us? As families move or are displaced, at a certain point the land becomes all that is left to remember us.”
Some feel that fine art photography can have an impact beyond visual.
Erika Taylor is a Voice of OC Tracy Wood Reporting Fellow and photojournalist. You can find her on Instagram @camerakeepsrolling.
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