Sergio Teran’s Paintings and Woodcuts Exhibition at the Southwest Museum

As part of NELAart Gallery Night

Opening Reception: June 14, 7–10 pm
Exhibition Dates: June 14–July 6, 2008
Museum open Saturdays and Sundays, Noon–5 pm

Los Angeles (May 1, 2008) — Subcultures and shrines are revealed in the lower-level gallery at the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, where local artist Sergio Teran explores these themes and more as part of the popular NELAart Gallery Night.

His works of choice are typically portraits and still lifes, often displayed within the context of a narrative. Laboriously painted in a realistic style and using in a mixture of medias, each theme is explored in a series of “corky” titles, such as The Absinthe (1997–1998), 91 Bottle Drawings, One Bottle at a Time (1999–2001), Los Lucha (religious wrestler prints and drawings, 2000–current), and Shrines (1998–current). “As a painter, I am interested in the integrity of subcultures, and in my work I choose to record these lifestyles,” said Teran.

Son of “El Manos Grande Bandit,” a rejected lucha libre (free-style wrestling) hopeful and real-life convenience store robber, Teran was “the baby born holding a bullet.” A security guard, giving chase to his father who had just robbed a handful of cash from a local convenience store, fired the bullet that pierced his pregnant mother, inducing labor. Both mother and son survived to witness his father’s fast, dysfunctional lifestyle, which resulted from his having grown bitter and shunned by “La Lucha.” Today, religious icons wearing lucha libre masks can be found throughout Teran’s works.

For the past ten years Teran has concentrated on his work as a visual artist, exhibiting his work in Boston, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, as well as in Taiwan, Mexico, and Germany. He received his BFA from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and his MA from New York University. He is currently an adjunct professor in arts at East Los Angeles College and Cerritos College and has been a guest professor and/or speaker at New York University, Northern University College of Graduate Nursing, and the MacNamara Foundation in Maine. His work can be found at Nielsen Gallery in Boston, and Tastes Like Chicken Art Space in Brooklyn New York.

• Southwest Museum of the American Indian
  The Southwest Museum holds one of the nation’s most important museum, library, and archive collections related to the American Indian. In addition, it has extensive holdings of pre-Hispanic, Spanish colonial, Latino, and Western American art and artifacts. For nearly one hundred years it has supported research, publications, exhibitions, and other educational activities to advance the public’s understanding and appreciation of the Americas, with particular emphasis on the western United States and Mesoamerica. The Southwest Museum is located at 234 Museum Drive in Mt. Washington and is easily accessible via the Metro Rail Gold Line, which stops directly across from the museum.
• The Southwest Museum and Museum Store are open Saturday and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m., during restoration and conservation projects. Admission is free.
• Southwest Museum of the American Indian
  234 Museum Drive
  Los Angeles, CA 90065
  323.221.2164
  www.SouthwestMuseum.org

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