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Life
as an artist can be an eclectic one and the career of Alessandra Moctezuma
follows in that tradition. An accomplished artist, teacher, lecturer,
and curator, Alessandra has experienced both the business as well as the
creative side of the art world. After
completing the general requirements at Santa Monica Community College,
she was accepted into the UCLA art program and began a curriculum that
included video art, printmaking and sculpture along with other media.
After receiving her B.A., Alessandra took a one year hiatus before enrolling
in the UCLA graduate arts program and in that time went from a first job
that involved decorative pillow painting, to the more stimulating opportunity
to work with the muralist Eva Cockcroft on a project for the city of Long
Beach. This job lead to another mural project with SPARC (Social Public
Art Resource Center), a group dedicated to placing murals in many of the
different ethnic communities around Los Angeles. SPARC itself is located
in Venice Beach and uses art as political commentary to promote ethnic
diversity. Alessandra worked with Judith Baca, the director of SPARC and
was later offered permanent work in an administrative capacity while they
worked on the World Wall, a portable mural made up of canvases
by Judith Baca and artists from around the world, that would culminate
in a showing at the Smithsonian Institute.
mural by eva cockcroft and alessandra moctezuma: D.A. Siqueiros (L.A.)
Upon re-entering UCLA, Alessandra met with some opposition to her style which she described as feminist, colorful, and narrative. A few of the professors expressed concern that her style was too reminiscent of the ethnic art of Mexico, and perhaps too influenced by her work as a muralist for the Chicano style at SPARC. In response she experimented with other ideas in her painting, engaging the flat pattern of Japanese prints, and draining her canvases of color to create paler tones, subject matter became more allusive. She added collage to pieces that were efficient in their use of canvas space and moved on to study printmaking. Once out of school, Alessandra moved from the position of Gallery Director at SPARC to a position with the Los Angeles MTA and the Art for Rail Transit program wherein she would be in charge of overseeing the production and installation of large scale art projects created to integrate with a number of the transit stations in greater Los Angeles. The job was overwhelming in size and scope, and required dealing with contractors and engineers in sometimes opposing situations, but the skills she had developed while at SPARC, along with thorough research, kept the projects in check and helped to balance oustide obligations that included teaching part time at Sci-Arc and working with Adobe L.A. (Artists and Designers Opening the Border of Los Angeles), a group she helped found with a handful of artists and architects interested in working with outreach and instrumental in creating youth shelters in some of the more culturally diverse areas of the city. A video documentation project featuring Latino communities was included in the MOCA exhibit Urban Revisions and was a particularily well received addition to the show. When she left the her position with Art for Rail to join her husband, noted author and professor Mike Davis, at SUNY Stoneybrook in New York, she had a number of the tranist projects completed and went on to open another chapter in her career working to attain a Ph.D in Hispanic Languages and Literature and adding backbone to an interest that has been evident throughout her work as both artist and activist. Today, Alessandra and her husband Mike have moved back to southern California and are settled in San Diego. Alessandra holds the position of Director at the Mesa Art Gallery at Mesa College, where she is in charge of selecting artists for upcoming shows, planning gallery events, and curating. In addition she is a professor at the college and teaches Art History and Museum Studies along with continuing to increase the visibility of art and artists in San Diego. You can see more of Alessandra's work and the metro art program by visiting these sites: naples.cc.sunysb.edu/CAS/lacc.nsf/pages/gallery
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