< /3 embodies the unspoken heartache in relationships with family, home, lovers, work, neighborhoods and ancestral colonial trauma. The exhibition provides a space specific to the experiences of API womxn and GNC, queer and allied artists who pull from their experiences of resistance and healing to address, navigate and interrogate heteropatriarchal and homonormative forms of love, care and representation.

Something from Nothing features over 100 objects created by incarcerated Japanese Americans during World War II. Included are handmade objects, historical artifacts, and photographs from the collection of the National Japanese American Historical Society (NJAHS) as well as two contemporary art installations by Barbara Horiuchi and Marlene Iyemura. Co-presented with the National Japanese American Historical Society. 

Walter Maciel Gallery is pleased to present With Liberty and Justice for Some, featuring the work of several contemporary artists who have been invited to create portraits of immigrants to the United States.  The show is a statement on the many fears surrounding the announcement of our new president elect and a powerful response rejecting the presumed policies that threaten to disrupt basic civil rights.  

As soon as the shock of the election results wore off, it became clear to us as art professionals our need to mobilize and create a positive message of hope within our curatorial program.  Suddenly so many communities are finding themselves under duress, attack and even deportation.  We began discussing our fears and challenges in hopes of sparking up ideas to unite us and protect the laws that support minority communities.  Part of that dialog included an idea brought to our attention by Monica Lundy, an artist working in the Bay Area and previously exhibited at Walter Maciel Gallery, who envisioned a collaborative group show allowing artist to comment on their anger and frustration within our new political system. The conversation was further enhanced by gallery artist Hung Liu, and together we came up with the idea of featuring portraits of immigrants; examining the very notion of our country’s foundation as a melting pot of individuals who emigrated from other places. The United States was built on many freedoms created to protect all of its inhabitants and we have spent many years securing different human rights. The new president will no doubt disrupt and change laws already in place for fair government.  The exhibition is appropriately planned in conjunction with his inauguration on January 20th and we hope the show will draw attention to many of the impending challenges.  

For the project, we invited artists across the country to do 8 x 8 inch portraits of various individuals who came to the United States as immigrants including historic subjects, personal friends and relatives, strangers and self portraits.  Several renderings simultaneously include disenfranchised communities, such as African Americans, LGBTQ persons, Mexicans, Muslims, Jews, refugees and women, thus representing many of the communities being threatened by the new administration.  The work includes many different mediums such as acrylic and oil paint on canvas, mixed media and collage on panel, photography, drawings and other works on paper.  The culmination of specifically selected portraits will be assembled in an installation depicting the American Flag while others are grouped together to celebrate the diversity of our country.  Some of the notable subjects include actor Bela Lugosi, entertainer Grace Jones, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Jamaican political leader Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr., Architect I. M. Pei, Province of Pennsylvania founder William Penn and several established artists such as Hung Liu, David Hockney, Marcel Duchamp,  Enrique Chagoya, Wanxin Zhang and Julie Mehretu.  Two gallery artists, Maria E. Piñeres and Nike Schröder, will present self portraits.

A major part of the exhibition is our commitment to support many valuable organizations that we feel will be compromised under the new administration, and who continue fighting for the rights and privileges of our communities.  With the support of all of the artists involved in the project, we are donating a portion of each sale to various non-profits including ACLU, Planned Parenthood, The Trevor Project, Center for Reproductive Rights and the LA and SF LGBT Centers.  

Walter Maciel Gallery extends a heartfelt thank you to Monica Lundy in our appreciation for her time, passion, dedication and overall organization in making this important exhibition possible.  We encourage as much support and devotion in making the transition into our new America less fearful.  

In honor of the organization’s 25th anniversary year, Asian American Women Artists Association presents Transformation: 25 Years of Asian American Women Artists. This multidisciplinary and intergenerational group exhibition features the works of 38 AAWAA artists members, from past to present. From a small artists collective in the late 1980s to today’s influential arts organization, this exhibition documents and celebrates the evolution of AAWAA artists throughout the years as it continues to leave a legacy of art for future creatives. This exhibition celebrates the diversity, creativity, and evolution of its artist community.

In lucid moments of stress or pain, the appendix is an organ whose unread cultural histories push their way into significance, carrying weight on an overlooked past, present and future. Showcasing work from ten emerging Asian American women and queer artists, the exhibition activates personal and intimate narratives of mental and historical trauma, while bravely reclaiming and empowering intergenerational memories as part of the world we live in today.

The annual Senior Thesis Exhibition showcases the final bodies of work created by the 2016 graduating senior class of the Mills College Studio Art Program.

Celebrate the graduating studio art majors in the culmination of their time learning and making while at Mills. Join them for Something Like This is Happening for a night of performance and participatory art. Performances include origami folding, poetry readings, dance, sound installation, and more.

Opening Reception: Saturday, April 2, 6:00 - 8:00 pm

Something Like This is Happening (event night): Friday, April 8, 7:00 pm

A group art exhibition that excavates the vibrant dreams of women through arts-based healing and transformation.

A Place of Her Own features more than 30 artworks and large-scale installations that excavate the vibrant dreams and hopes of women. On view with accompanying public programming November 19 to December 11, 2015, the group visual arts exhibition amplifies the voices of 20 women artists with diverse cultural perspectives ranging in age from 21 to 89 years old. Each piece in the exhibition is a courageous visual answer to the question, “If you had a place of your own, what would it be?”

Exhibited artworks—marked by a saturation of color, imaginative use of materials and visual storytelling—highlight the personal, yet universal, journey to seek out and claim a place without external rules or expectations. Accompanying events and interactive installations invite the audience to join the journey.

The concept of “Hungry Ghosts” is common throughout many Asian cultures and religions. It typically refers to the lost spirit of a deceitful, jealous or greedy person or someone who died in a violent or unhappy way. These hungry ghosts roam the earth burdened by unmet needs, insatiable hungers, and intense desires often for a particular substance or object. Placating these ghosts often involves special ceremonies and offerings of fine food, “ghost money”, burning incense, and candles.

The Hungry Ghosts exhibition explores the ghosts of our individual and collective historical struggles and the ways they continue to haunt us today. In the era “after identity politics” when many have been quick to proclaim America as being “Post-Racial” or “Post-Feminist”, we have seen the specters of unresolved struggles with racism, sexism, homophobia, and economic inequities re-emerge into public consciousness in both overtly violent and subtle ways. Illuminating these shape-shifting specters (and their illusive progeny) of historical struggles, the artists in this exhibition will serve as mediums for our Hungry Ghosts.