San Diego Mesa College Celebrates Black History Month with Opening of DIVIDED STATES OF AMERICA Exhibit Today

Join us for Black History Month: Presented in collaboration with the Black Studies Department and Professor Thekima Mayasa. Funded by the San Diego Mesa College Humanities Institute.

This powerful exhibit will feature a collection of six large-scale paintings from the series the Divided State of America, created by internationally renowned spray-paint artist Chor Boogie. The paintings highlight the tension that we experience in an ideologically fractured America and they clearly address and reveal the issues that divide us: immigration, energy, foreign policy, race, the economy, class, religion, education, the environment, taxes, welfare, social security, health care, climate change and war. The artworks were commissioned by Nirmal Mulye, Ph.D., the founder of Nostrum Group, as a way to understand the fractured social landscape that is part and parcel of a democratic political process.

When we listen to the news, watch TV, read the headlines and engage in conversations with a friend, family member or neighbor we encounter a nation of differences. As we approach the 2016 Presidential Election, it seems that these differences are becoming insurmountable. The artwork by artist Chor Boogie makes us ponder on these various hot-button topics.

San Diego Mesa College is part of a national tour that has a mission to inspire dialogue and to illuminate our differences so that we can find solutions. Chor Boogie alters symbols such as Lady Liberty, Jesus Christ on the Cross, or theRed, White and Blue of the American flag, and overlays them with scrawled text from the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. He uses the Dollar Bill to bring attention to issues of inequality and poverty.

Another painting utilizes the historical phrase "We The People" to bring attention to the foundational values of this country while highlighting the shift from the ideal of a country ruled by 'the people' to one that is controlled by government and corporations. Institutionalized racism and police brutality are presented as major problems that shift us away from the American Dream.

Chor Boogie, born Jason Hailey in 1979, was raised in Oceanside, CA. He has been painting with aerosol spray paint for over 20 years with an emphasis on the use of vibrant colors and layering of complex imagery such as geometric elements or hidden faces. Chor Boogie moved to San Francisco in 2007 to pursue a full time career in art. His monumental murals include a piece for the Olympics in China and a segment of the Berlin Wall. His recent 30x60-foot commission of Michael Jackson and Madonna in the heart of Times Square earned him the distinction being named one of the best street artists in the United States. In 2011, the Torrance Art Museum named him one of Americas rising stars. Other countries where he has painted murals include Canada, Brazil, China, Australia, Dubai and Mexico. In 2015, he created a mural for the San Diego Museum of Art.

*FREE PARKING ON RECEPTION NIGHT ONLY: Park on the Faculty A Lots adjacent and across from the flagpole.

*For parking DURING REGULAR GALLERY HOURS go to www.sdmesa.edu/parking.

NEW Gallery Hours: MT 11-4 pm, W, TH 1 - 8 pm.
Closed Fridays, Weekends and School Holidays.

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