Immigrant stories take center stage in trio of San Francisco art exhibitions

San Francisco Chronicle​

a day ago

Amid nationwide raids of immigrant communities and the subsequent protests against the Trump administration's policies, the work of Napa artist Arleene Correa Valencia has felt more necessary than ever.
Her latest exhibition, 'Codice Del Perdedor / The Losing Man's Codex,' now on view at Catharine Clark Gallery, draws inspiration from the Aztec Codex Boturini, which depicts the mythic migration from Aztlán to the founding of Tenochtitlán. The works are all on amate paper, the bark-based material traditionally used by her Indigenous Mexican ancestors.
Correa Valencia's own migration story echoes this ancient journey. She was born in Michoacán, Mexico, and brought to the U.S. at just 3 years old. She lived for years without legal status before receiving protections under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. In 2022, she became a U.S. citizen, but by then she had long created work about the complexities of coming from a mixed immigration status family — especially the fear of removal and separation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Three years ago, at age 28, Correa Valencia returned to Mexico for the first time, an experience that deeply shaped the work in her latest San Francisco exhibition. Her use of amate paper is both a cultural homage and a personal restoration of roots severed by migration.
'When I saw this (the Codex), I was reminded of how our story of migration is a universal experience that never ends,' Correa Valencia wrote in an artist statement. 'I made this work with the intention of reflecting on the current state of our community being hunted down by ICE, but also to celebrate our strength and resilience — to take pride in the beautiful ways in which we can come together and protect each other.'
The Napa artist's debut show at Catharine Clark Gallery in 2022, 'Aveces Quiero Llorar Porque Te Extraño, Pero Mi Mami Dice Que Estás Bien Y Pronto Estaremos Juntos Otra Vez / Sometimes I Want To Cry Because I Miss You, But My Mom Says That You're Fine and That We'll Soon Be Together Again,' conveyed family separation in a way that still haunts me.
The pieces featured in that show were small textile portraits of migrant parents and children, shown in silhouette rendered in cloth. Each work had one figure merely outlined or made from disappearing reflective fabric to indicate their absence.
The personal details of Correa Valencia's work — the use of family materials, the emblems that show up in discreet ways — are what make it universally representative. She's incorporated letters from her father in her work, and clothing from family members. While the figures themselves remain vague, a familiar logo on a T-shirt or a blanket with a Mexican motif grab you with their specificity.
Pieces like 'Solas Pero Siempre Juntas / Alone But Always Together,' which depict two figures wearing backpacks, an El Salvador logo hoodie to the side of them, look like any school-age youth you'd see on the street. But Correa Valencia's mix of paint and fabric to render the figures gives them a tactile quality that feels very mortal.
'Casa De La Abuelita / Grandma's House,' is a beautiful marriage of paint and textile, with figures of children surrounded by purple blooms of jacaranda. The amate paper background gives each work a spectacular texture and effect, like a fading sky. Meanwhile, 'Las Madres Inmigrantes No Se Rajan / Migrant Mothers Don't Give Up,' drives home the show's transportation theme, with a yellow pickup truck bed seemingly cradling a child and a barely outlined mother.
Correa Valencia's solo show is paired with two other immigrant artists, each approaching themes of displacement, labor and ritual through deeply personal and culturally rooted lenses.
Alejandro Cartagena's 'In Between Spaces — Entre Espacios' includes the Dominican-born photographer's iconic photo series 'Carpoolers' (2011–2012). The series was inspired by Cartagena's grandfather, a lifelong construction worker who led a crew of day workers carpooling to job sites.
Cartagena stationed himself on an overpass during Mexico's housing boom in Monterrey, where he's currently based, and photographed laborers riding to work in pickup truck beds from a specific aerial vantage.The series was inspired by Cartagena's grandfather, a lifelong construction worker who led a crew of day workers carpooling to job sites. Cartagena stationed himself on an overpass during Mexico's housing boom in Monterrey, where he's currently based, and photographed laborers riding to work in pickup truck beds from a specific aerial vantage.
'Those frames freeze an 'in-between' instant that is at once public and startlingly intimate,' Cartagena explained in his artist statement. 'The images reveal how policy, public urban programs, and economic aspiration conspire to shape the ways we occupy space in Latin American cities.'
While the subjects are anonymous, the way they are positioned, their clothing and how many people are crowded into each truck bed feel distinctly human and unique. The more you look at the series en masse, the more the image reveals. You begin to see relationships between the people and the trucks that reoccur in different photos. The drivers and passengers shielded in the truck's cab even begin to appear with an elbow out the window.
For those who miss his show at Catherine Clark Gallery, on view through July 19, Cartagena's work will be featured at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art this fall. He'll be the focus of 'Ground Rules,' a major exhibition opening Nov. 22 and curated by Shana Lopes, SFMOMA's assistant curator of photography.
Back at the gallery, the media room showcases Nanci Amka's video series titled 'Cleanse' (2017–ongoing), which depicts the Nigerian artist's ritualistic cleaning, washing and anointing of the Ward Warehouse in Honolulu before its demolition.
The first in the series, 'Three Walls,' is currently on view with this exhibition cycle; the subsequent two to be presented before the end of this year.
'It is customary in many indigenous cultures — including my own Igbo culture — to wash and dress the body of the dead before they are buried,' Amaka shared in her artist statement. 'I lost my mother to violence as a young child. Sadly, her family did not get the chance to perform the final rites of washing her body before she was buried.'
Amaka's ritual for the structure was a way of resolving this past trauma with the onset of her pregnancy. There is something serene about watching the artist, clad in white, cleaning a building that will soon be gone, moving across the gallery's three walls.
At a time when immigrant voices are once again being suppressed, this trio of exhibitions steps in to amplify them.