Soy de Tejas Performance Night

Join us at Centro de Artes on Thursday, April 13 from 6pm – 8pm for a night of performances featuring Dallas native Christian Cruz, San Antonio-based Jose Villalobos, and a musical performance by Brownsville’s Cande Aguilar. The event is free and open to the public.

Soy de Tejas presents the works of forty native Texan and Texas-based contemporary artists who reflect the diverse and beautiful complexity of Latinx identities. Curated by Rigoberto Luna, the more than 100 artworks filling the two-story exhibition forge new connections and explore intersections from a nexus of artists who ambitiously blaze a trail of contemporary artmaking, presenting fresh Latinx perspectives and experiences while amplifying the voices of a segment of Texas’ most inspiring established and emerging artists. Learn More about the exhibit. 

@GetCreativeSA #CentroDeArtesSA #SoydeTejas

About the Performance Night Artists

Christian Cruz (b. 1989) is an educator, independent writer, and award-winning multi-media artist. Her work takes the form of performance, installation, video, and photo within a visual arts context. She attended Columbia College Chicago for Visual Arts Management and held the only poetry residency at The National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, IL. In 2013, Cruz hosted and produced “Forañeo” at Centro de Cultura Digital in Mexico City. She has performed nationally and internationally in galleries, museums, universities, festivals, and public spaces. In 2020, Cruz created Artist Mama Fund for single mothers who are artists; and the Dallas Performance Art Index, an online archive of performance artists in Dallas, Texas. Last year, Cruz was awarded the Foundation for Contemporary Arts E-Grant, EASL Grant, PAAL Grant, and the Culture of Value Grant from the Dallas Office of Arts & Culture. In 2021, Cruz was an EmergeNYC fellow and in residence with INVERSE at The Momentary in Bentonville, AR. From December 2021 to January 2022, the Nasher Sculpture Center commissioned a performance installation for their Nasher Public series. The performance installation was activated for eight weeks, twice a week, for 6 hours daily. She is pursuing her Master’s in Visual and Performing Arts from the University of Texas, Dallas. She is a mother and a survivor.

José Villalobos (b. 1988) grew up in El Paso, TX, on the US/Mexico border. His work reconciles the identity challenges in his life, caught between conventional Mexican customs and American mores and growing up with religious ideals that contrast with being gay. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Texas at San Antonio. Villalobos is a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Painters & Sculptors Grant Award and Residency and the Tanne Foundation Award. He exhibited and performed in the nationally recognized exhibition Trans America/n: Gender, Identity, Appearance Today at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, TX; Phoenix Art Museum: Desert Rider, Phoenix, AZ; ArtPace, San Antonio, TX; San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX; NARS Foundation, New York, NY; El Paso Museum of Art, TX; El Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez, Mexico; and is featured in the upcoming group exhibition Xican-a.o.x. Body at The American Federation of Arts in New York, curated by Marisa del Toro, Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, and Gilbert Vicario. José Villalobos’s work is included in the permanent collection of the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin, TX; the City of San Antonio Public Collection, San Antonio, TX; and Albright College, Reading, PA.

Cande Aguilar (b. 1972) was born and raised in Brownsville, Texas, a self-taught artist who reflects on border culture through his BarrioPOP distinctive style. At the age of 10, Aguilar embarked on a music career and recorded his first album by the age of 13. As a musician, he toured the United States and received numerous awards. Life on the road allowed Aguilar to mature and gain inspiration from diverse cultures. In 1999 he produced his first oil painting and has since accumulated an impressive body of work. He has shown his passion and dedication for the arts in this short period. Aguilar defines his BarrioPOP style as an amalgamation sprung by characters, colors, and street phenomena. His work has been featured in shows at The McNay Art Museum, The Brownsville Museum of Fine Art, Craighead Green Gallery & Kirk Hopper Fine Art in Dallas, K Space Contemporary in Corpus Christi, TX, The Painting Center in New York City, Studio Apothiki in Cyprus and the Texas Biennial 2017 in Austin. His work is in the collections of the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art; Wichita Falls Museum of Art; UTSA Art Collection, San Antonio, TX; Mountain View College, Dallas, TX; Harper College, Palatine, IL; and Cheech Marin Center of Chicano Art, Riverside, CA.