Arleene Correa Valencia: Naces Así, Naces Prieto. No Naces Blanco / You Are Born Like This, You Are Born Brown. You Are Not Born White.
On view August 26 – November 4, 2023 | North Gallery and Media Room
Opening reception: Saturday, August 26 from 3 – 5pm; artist talk at 4pm
San Francisco: Catharine Clark Gallery opens its fall program with Arleene Correa Valencia’s Naces Así, Naces Prieto. No Naces Blanco / You Are Born Like This, You Are Born Brown. You Are Not Born White., on view August 26 – November 4, 2023 in the North Gallery and Media Room. Born in Mexico and based in California’s Napa Valley, Arleene Correa Valencia creates paintings, textiles, and drawings that reflect on patterns of migration and family separation. Her recent work is inspired by the letters that she wrote to her father as a child, during a period when her father had migrated to the United States while Correa Valencia remained in Mexico. Correa Valencia draws on her family’s archives and correspondence to craft a visual language that considers the politics of visibility and the complexities of undocumented immigration.
A former Dreamer, Correa Valencia often incorporates her family’s textiles into the work to commemorate her own border crossing. Her work frequently depicts parents and children in silhouette, rendering them anonymous, as they cross the border. Outlined in thread, these figures appear both present and absent, seemingly in a perpetual state of transition. Correa Valencia’s exhibition features new textiles and drawings, as well as two major paintings, light sculptures, and a sound piece – the artist’s first – installed in the gallery’s Media Room.
Correa Valencia’s exhibition coincides with her inclusion in the triennial Bay Area Now 9 (BAN9) at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, on view October 6, 2023–May 5, 2024. Correa Valencia’s work is also featured at The Armory Show in New York, September 7 – 10, 2023, in the Focus section, organized by Candice Hopkins, Director and Chief Curator of Forge Project, a Native-led initiative that supports work by contemporary Indigenous artists.
Join us for an opening reception on Saturday, August 26 from 3 – 5pm, with an artist talk at 4pm.
In conversation with Correa Valencia’s work, the gallery presents Yes, it’s an original, a survey of recent publications by Mullowney Printing in our South Gallery, on view through September 23, 2023. The exhibition features new and recent prints by Arleene Correa Valencia, Sherrill Roland, Kali Spitzer, Stephanie Syjuco, Masami Teraoka, Storm Tharp, and Marie Watt.
In the photogravure series, Antes De Mi / Before Me (2023), Correa Valencia attempts to trace her family's history, starting from the union of her paternal grandparents, who now play a significant role in the artist's connection to her native heritage.
Before Me unveils a part of her family's story that ultimately led to her migration to the United States, where she faced the hardships of being an undocumented immigrant. Growing up as an undocumented recipient of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), Correa Valencia observed that much of her family's past had been lost or erased to facilitate assimilation and protect them from being identified as "illegal."
This series combines etchings of traditional Mexican images, family photos, embroidery, and beading, weaving together stories spanning multiple generations. The pieces aim to illustrate a family's resilience amid the political unrest between the United States and Latin America.
