February 17 through March 31, 2018
Opening Reception: Saturday, February 17, 7-10PM
Bermudez Projects is proud to announce Ana Serrano’s La Yarda, the artist’s debut solo exhibit at Bermudez Projects | NELA/Cypress Park. Spanglish for “front yard,” La Yarda presents a series of new sculptural works – both three-dimensional and two-dimensional, relief style – highlighting single-family homes and, more specifically, these private/public spaces, placing an emphasis on how homeowners explore their cultural hybridity by engaging, altering, and/or personalizing these intimate, but capacious urban oases.
“The front yards I reference are the enclosed front yards found in Latino neighborhoods in the United States,” said Serrano. “While the front yard is accessible to the public, it is also a private and personal space that is a reflection of its residents.”
With exacting precision and attention to detail, Serrano utilizes various media, including acrylic, paper, collage, and cardboard, to capture – with fantastic realism – our everyday environments, mirroring well-known Los Angeles neighborhoods such as Boyle Heights, Downey, East Los Angeles, and Highland Park. The dozen works in La Yarda are extra special as they highlight the commonalities that are present in front yards, which ultimately create a sense of belonging amongst neighbors.
“[I wanted to] take a deeper look at the specific elements of the Latino front-yard aesthetic – the use use of color, building materials, and [other] decorative objects,” added Serrano. “[I also wanted to consider] the cultural norms around using the front yard as a social space.”
Serrano’s recent large-scale installation, Homegrown, at the Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA) captures this front-yard aesthetic, reaffirming its socio-cultural and architectural significance to urban life.
According to PMCA’s exhibit panel, “Ana Serrano: Homegrown unearths the complex ways in which Latinx (people of Latin American descent) negotiate cultural hybridity, acknowledging the persistence and survival of heritage and culture, while embracing life in the United States. A native Angeleno, Serrano creates work that is inspired by the Latinx neighborhoods in which she grew up. The artist’s laborious act of sculpting the natural urban landscape from cardboard and paper is a conceptual gesture made in homage to her family’s heritage of working the land in Mexico.”
La Yarda furthers this exploration of cultural hybridity and demonstrates how Serrano celebrates the inexorable ties she has with her dual Mexican/American contexts.
Ana Serrano (b. 1983) earned her BFA from Art Center College of Design (2008). Her works have been exhibited in both solo and group museum shows, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Fowler Museum of Cultural History, Vincent Price Art Museum, and the National Museum of Mexican Art. Serrano’s sculptures are held in private and public collections, including the AltaMed Art Collection, Los Angeles and The Phyllis & Ross Escalette Permanent Collection of Art at Chapman University; and she has been featured in various publications such as Juxtapoz, American Style, Vogue (Mexico), In the Company of Women (Artisan Press, 2016), and the New York Times. Serrano currently lives and works in Portland, Oregon.
