| Sanchez
Art Center is pleased to present an exhibit titled Hell 2 Pay
and Other Works by John Yoyogi Fortes, curated by Philip E.
Linhares. Born in a taxi on Yoyogi Street in Tokyo, John Yoyogi
Fortes is a Northern California painter based in Sacramento. His
paintings are often large-scale explorations of self that lean toward
a whimsical, dark, and obscure world. The artist describes his process
thus: “My paintings start spontaneously as I create random areas
of color and imagery, building up the surface. There is, however,
a magical moment when interrelationships develop between the forms.
Eventually a loose narrative is created based on ideas around self.
This drives the direction and choices I make towards the painting’s
completion.”
Fortes’ paintings have been exhibited in California, Nevada, Chicago,
New York, Hawaii, Venezuela, Japan, and Norway, and are held in numerous private collections, as well as at the Asian
American Art Centre in New York, the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, and the Triton Museum of Art and Crocker Art Museum
in California. In 2004 Fortes was awarded a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant. He has received
numerous other grants and honors, including grants from the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission, and a Visual
Artist Fellowship from the California Arts Council. Fortes was also nominated for the Alliance of Artists Communities,
Vision from the New California Project in 2006 and 2007, and his work was included in the International Arts &
Artists traveling exhibition, Infinite Mirror; Images of American Identity.
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Come to the free Artist/Curator Talk
by John Yoyogi Fortes and Phil Linhares
on closing Sunday, June 26, at 4 pm.
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Fortes is also a videographer and has collaborated
with the California Association of Museums and the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, producing videos
of Bay Area artists Travis Sommerville and Mel Ramos, and Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein. Currently
he is working with the Crocker Art Museum on their Block by Block initiative based on community engagement
and various projects with the California Endowment.
Join in the fun at
the June 3 reception by making some art of your own for our Community
Art Project, titled Coastal Colors. We provide the panels
and the paints, and will display your creations in our East Gallery
foyer.
Sanchez Art Center is located at 1220 Linda Mar Blvd in Pacifica,
about a mile east of Highway 1. Following opening night, the galleries are open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, 1–5 pm,
and by appointment, through June 26. For more information call 650.355.1894.
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