A book launch and panel discussion with Jasmin Hernandez, founder of Gallery Gurls, and Indie 184, Untitled Queen, Luna Luis Ortiz and Gabriella Sanchez. Centering BIPOC, with a particular focus on queer, trans, nonbinary, and BIWOC, Hernandez’s We Are Here: Visionaries of Color Transforming the Art World (Abrams; February 2, 2021) features 50 intimate interviews that engage with each artist and influencer, delving into their creative process and unpacking how each subject actively works to create a more radically inclusive world across the entire art ecosystem. A celebration of compelling intergenerational creatives making their mark, We Are Here shows a path for all who seek to see themselves in art and culture. Hernandez and the panelists will share, reflect, and discuss life lessons from navigating 2020 as Black and Brown Latinx artists and creatives, and embarking on growth for the new decade.
This event is co-sponsored by Sulo: The Philippine Studies Initiative at NYU (SPSI).
Panelists
Indie 184, or Soraya Marquez (born 1980), is an artist and native New Yorker of Dominican descent who has been active in the graffiti culture for over 2 decades. Determined to express herself to the world through art, she quit business college to teach herself how to sew, paint and produce graphic design. Also influenced by abstract expressionism and pop art, her paintings are raptures of color and textures. Fused with her original graffiti and street art, imagery, and designs juxtaposed with personal messages. Indie’s art has been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide, including El Museo del Barrio in New York City and Völklingen Ironworks Museum, in Saarbrücken Germany, Museo de Bellas Artes De Murcia in Spain, as well as numerous solo and group gallery exhibitions. Her graffiti and mixed media murals can be found in the streets, from the South Bronx to Paris. Her most recent collaborations have been with Rimmel London as Chief Artistic Officer, Apple Beats1 Radio, Lionsgate Films, MTV Networks and a capsule clothing collection with iBlues. Catch her creating her latest work in the streets, designing or painting in her studio.
Untitled Queen, also known as Matthew de Leon, is a Boricua / Filipinx artist, drag queen, decolonizer, and community organizer based in Brooklyn, NY. She is the recipient of the Drag Queen of the Year 2015 for the Brooklyn Nightlife Awards. She is a resident performer at Rupaul's Drag Race Season 9 Winner Sasha Velour’s Nightgowns. She recently presented Untitled (World), the first global LGBTQIA+ digital drag show, with 47 drag artists each representing 1 country. The event raised funds for 3 global HIV organizations in honor of World AIDS Day.
Luna Luis Ortiz is an award-winning artist and activist born in New York City to Puerto Rican parents in 1972. From an early age, Luna was creative by drawing and coloring pieces of art as he expressed himself vividly, shocking his mother who was in awe. In 1986, he was infected with HIV at the age of 14 by his first sexual encounter. This began his life with photography. Not knowing how to live and deal with HIV, Luna used photography as a way to document his life through self-portraits.
Creating a body of work, his photographs have been included in gallery exhibitions in New York, Michigan, Washington DC, and Paris, France, as well as the Boston Center of the Arts, Museum of the City of New York, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art in NY, all under the supervision of Visual AIDS. By 1989, he began his journey as an artist living with HIV and as a spokesperson for youth living with HIV. Luna has dedicated his life to HIV prevention and AIDS awareness for people around the world by appearing on MTV, VH1, PBS, Telemundo, Now This, Logo, NY1, MSNBC, ABC, and Time Out with Magic Johnson and Arsenio Hall, as well as Living in the Age of AIDS with Peter Jennings. Creating representation for "people who look like me," was important to Luna.
Luna had received letters of appreciation for his contributions from New York City Mayors Edward Koch and David Dinkins as well as the Distinguished Service Award from the State of New York. In 2015, Luna received The City of New York Proclamation from The City Council at City Hall for his 30-plus years of dedication in the fight against AIDS. As a public speaker, he has been invited to share his life story and art at New York University, Cornell University, Sarah Lawrence College, Penn State University, Syracuse University, Yale University, Jersey City Museum, Whitney Museum, Queens Museum and American Folk Art Museum, NY.
Today, Luna continues to inspire and empower youth of color around the world with his stories and art. His passions as a father to LGBT youth give him the opportunity to continue to guide and support young people with love, compassion, and care.
Gabriella Sanchez (b. 1988, Pasadena, CA) is a Los Angeles-based cross-disciplinary artist whose work is rooted in painting and the exploration of social symbols. She worked for several years as a full time graphic designer on projects with Nike, Toyota and other such clients. She began exhibiting her paintings and works on paper in 2016, and her work has been exhibited at spaces such as Jeffrey Deitch (New York), Charlie James Gallery (LA), Páramo Galeria (Guadalajara), the Crocker Art Museum, LMAK Gallery NYC, and LA Louver. She has shown at various art fairs including Frieze LA, Armory New York, Zona Maco in CDMX, EXPO Chicago, and the Seattle Art Fair. Her work is in notable collections including LACMA, Crocker Art Museum, the JP Morgan & Chase Collection, and other private collections. Gabriella received her BFA in 2011 from PLNU in San Diego, CA and is represented by Charlie James Gallery in Los Angeles.
Jasmin Hernandez is a Black Latinx founder and editor in chief of Gallery Gurls. Her writing has appeared in Harper’s Bazaar, Paper, Bustle, ELLE, the Cut, Artnet, and more. Jasmin is the debut author of the forthcoming Abrams title,We Are Here: Visionaries of Color Transforming the Art World, releasing February 2021. She is a native New Yorker born to Dominican parents, based in Harlem, New York City. To learn more follow @gallerygurls.
Event Recap
In a stunning, open forum that doubled as a book launch, Jasmin Hernandez, founder of Gallery Gurls, curated a panel discussion centering her upcoming book We Are Here: Visionaries of Color Transforming the Art World. With Hernandez serving as moderator, the panel included four of the 50 Black and Brown artists and influencers featured in We Are Here — Indie 184, Untitled Queen, Luna Luis Ortiz, and Gabriella Sanchez. The author skillfully weaved together the narratives shared by these creatives to demonstrate the state of the U.S. art world and its view of BIPOC artists, while at the same time shining a spotlight on the way said artists face this marginalization by making their own spaces. “Making space” was the phrase of the evening, as each creative spoke candidly about their art, mentorship, creative survival, and how they each navigate performative activism.