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Parallel Stories: Breaking the Cycle/Rewriting the Story

Parallel Stories: Breaking the Cycle/Rewriting the Story

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Narsiso Martinez, Self-Portrait En La Cherry (with Strawberry Fields Forever in the Background), 2020. Ink, charcoal, gouache and acrylic matte gel on produce cardboard boxes. Museum purchase with funds provided by The Basil Alkazzi Acquisition Fund.

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Portrait of Narsiso Martinez

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Portrait of Alex Espinoza

SBMA, Mary Craig Auditorium

Free Students | Museum Circle
$10 SBMA Members
$15 Non-Members

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Writing and storytelling were a kind of escape from the violence and poverty I saw and experienced around me growing up. They were an opportunity for me to step out of my environment and create alternate worlds.

-Alex Espinoza

 

When someone pays attention to you, you feel like you have an identity, and you have meaning. I want them to have the same feeling. I want them to know that they are someone, that they are important.

-Narsiso Martinez


Artist Narsiso Martinez and writer Alex Espinoza share their intersecting stories of family, place, identity, escape, and witness. In equally powerful narrative drawings and narrated words, these two artists create connections in situations and generations where disconnections often speak louder than truth or tenderness.

Parallel Stories is a literary and performing arts series that pairs art and artists with award-winning authors and performers of regional, national, and international acclaim. This series functions as a multidisciplinary lens through which to view the Museum's collection and special exhibitions.

Martinez and Espinosa are interviewed by Melinda Gandara, who teaches literature, art, and culture in the American Ethnic Studies, Chicano Studies, and Art History Departments at Santa Barbara City College. She also serves as an adjunct professor at the Institute of American Indian Art teaching the Arts of Central and South America and Native American Art History.

Book signing to follow.