Images of Social Justice from the Segura Arts Studio

On loan from the Segura Arts Studio, Notre Dame Center for Arts and Culture.

Guest Curators: Joseph Segura, Jessica O’Hearn and Jill Lerner

Images of Social Justice from the Segura Arts Studio illustrates the history of Segura Art Studio by describing its mission of working with underrepresented artists through their published artwork. Master printer Joseph Segura, founded the Segura Publishing Company in Tempe, Arizona in 1981. The studio was renamed Segura Arts Studio when it was welcomed into the University of Notre Dame in 2013. The studio has played an important role in contemporary printmaking with an initial focus on collaboration with artist-printmakers and on the technical aspects and aesthetics of various print processes. The initial focus was expanded to include artists whose creative work had a strong political message. Segura was drawn to marginalized artists: women, African and Native Americans, as well as Latino artists. The studio continues to emphasize the importance of collaborative practice as well as education and activism.

The artists represented in Images of Social Justice creatively struggle with concerns regarding abuse of power, culture wars, gender and citizenship. These struggles are all too frequently showcased in current media as divisive and polarizing. With a new generation of artist-activists working in studios across the country, the conversation between artists and audience continues. Providing artists with access to a print studio in a university setting and a way to share their ideas is central to the mission of Segura Arts, as is the placement of the work in museums where it will be seen by a wider audience and continue to influence contemporary culture. In conjunction with Appalachian State University’s mission to embrace diversity and difference, the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts is honored to showcase a variety of work from the Segura Arts Studio.

This exhibition is brought to you in part by Tina and Gary Silverstein.

About the artist

Enrique Chagoya

Born in Mexico City, Mexico, Enrique Chagoya examines the recurring subjects of colonialism and oppression that continue to influence contemporary American foreign policy. He uses images from American culture, placing them within the context of an indigenous or third world perspective. Drawing from his experiences living on both sides of the United States-Mexico border in the late 70s, and also in Europe in the late 90s, Enrique Chagoya juxtaposes secular, popular, and religious symbols in order to address the ongoing cultural clash between the United States, Latin America, and the world. He uses familiar pop icons to create deceptively friendly points of entry for the discussion of complex issues. Through these seemingly harmless characters, Chagoya examines the cultural clash that continues to riddle contemporary life. He has been the recipient of numerous awards such as two National Endowment for the Arts artist fellowships; a Tiffany Fellowship; an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; a President’s Award for Excellence from the San Francisco Art Institute; and a grant from Artadia.

Chagoya is currently a professor at Stanford University’s Department of Art and Art History.

Terry Evans

Terry Evans is a Chicago based photographer whose work examines the American landscape, capturing the relationship between humans and nature. Her aerial photographs have focused on the natural beauty of the plains and on alterations made to the land by industry and development.

Graciela Iturbide

Graciela Iturbide is a Latin American photographer who focuses on the culture, rituals, and everyday life of Mexico. Her photographs often explore gender, the role of women, and cultures in which women are economically, politically, and sexually independent.

Sue Coe

Sue Coe uses prints and drawings to bring awareness to factory farming, capitalism, and social injustice. Having grown up across from a slaughterhouse, Coe developed a passion to stop cruelty to animals and she often sells prints to benefit animal rights organizations. In 1996, Coe was artist in residence at The Segura Publishing Company in Tempe, Arizona. She asked, master print maker, Joe Segura to model for her. She insisted that he pose as if he were being arrested, and Segura reluctantly obliged. Coe’s print serves as an example of what immigrants endure on a regular basis.

Luis Jiménez

Luis Jiménez explored the idea of bridging cultures and seeking cultural identity through legends of the past. Jiménez became a contemporary spokesman on co-mingling of cultures, both as they accrued in historic Mexico and as they continue in the American Southwest.

Additional resources

• Installation Album – On Flickr
• Segura Arts Studio