MONICA CANILAO + XARA THUSTRA
Exhibition: Oct 4th - Nov 2nd 2019
Opening reception: Friday Oct 4 (6 - 10:30pm)
Closing reception: Friday Nov 1 (6 - 9pm)
Hardy yummy food & chilling all night, pot luck style, bring anything to share & party
MCXT is a creative partnership between Monica Canilao and Xara Thustra. A collaborative effort birthed out of a joint wish to communicate care and empowerment within public spaces. Together they share a deep need to make a bright, vibrant world using the tools of art and activism. MCXT goes big in scale, in heart, and in vision. They create moments to think and reflect on what things might look like if every human were to contemplate care. There is an important whimsical seriousness aimed to direct the viewer's attention to the bright, bustling, heart wrenching beauty that surrounds us in each moment. A reminder that what’s here is enough and vast, it’s simple and infinite. MCXT wakes the sleepy eyed passerby to a gaze into an altered state, refocus and participate.... because love is the answer.
Monica Canilao has deep investment in ideas surrounding home, community, and the passage of time. These themes are delicately interwoven into her daily life and they have reserved space to be engaged consistently in collaborations with a revolving cast of core friends and artists. A portion of her practice focuses on a creative trade and barter system, ultimately bonding makers to each other and creating community outside of conventional commerce. Fascinated with the imprint people leave behind, Canilao creates a visual record from salvaged objects and weathered images. She combines a variety of found artifacts with mixed media to transform forgotten objects and familiar imagery into a personal vernacular of newborn mythology. Her work spans from massive paper and fabric structures, to site-specific installations, murals, printmaking, painting, mixed media works, jewelry constructions, assemblage and sculptures. Through her practice and collaborations she attempts to create a visual vernacular that resonates beyond verbal and individual differences. Her vast body of diverse work compiles a living history, creating a narrative that weaves her experiences with physical remnants of past lives.
Xara Thustra believes that art is inseparable from resistance and community. They work collaboratively across all media to manifest artistic forms of resilience and support. Since the late 1990s, they have bound together the twin spirits of resistance and community in the bay area and beyond. Utilizing their artistic practice that spans huge public dinner parties, graffiti, screen printed posters, calendars, murals, paintings, videos, music, performance, dance parties, and elaborate protests. Xara’s art provides many of the most powerful visual images of the Bay Area’s anti-displacement and anti-war struggles of the past two decades, their artistic collaborations have given essential support to organizations like the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition and the Coalition on Homelessness. Over time their work has evolved from street art into elaborate performances and filmmaking. Xara has worked with countless others on many now-legendary art events, and has contributed an extensive body of elaborate murals.
