Salvadoran-born Victor Cartagena was awarded the "Visions
from the New California" grant award in 2004, sponsored by
a seven-member California Artist residency program consortium
and pursued a month-long residency at 18th Street Arts Complex
in Santa Monica in July 2004. In 2004 he received a grant from
the Peter S. Reed Foundation in support of the development of
his work and was nominated for the Joan Mitchell Award. He was
a joint recipient of a Rockefeller grant with Octavio Solis and
Larry Reed for Shadowlight's production of The Seven Visions of
Encarnaciòn produced at the Brava Theater Center in November
2002. Cartagena tackles numerous social issues in the U.S. such as consumer culture,
homelessness, and material waste. His artistic palette has also
branched out to include sculpture, audio and video. In recent
years, Cartagena has also ventured into the world of set-design,
receiving critical acclaim for his set-design for Greg Sarris'
Mission Indians, a Campo Santo/Intersection for the Arts production
and his collaboration with Larry Reed and Octavio Solis on Shadowlight's
Seven Visions of Encarnacion. Cartagena's work has been reviewed in Artweek, Art Issues, The San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Bay Guardian, The San Jose Mercury News, The Oakland Tribune, Cambio and El Latino, Hoy (L.A.), among others. Nationally, Cartagena has exhibited in New York, Philadelphia, Honolulu, and all over California, including Los Angeles. Internationally, Cartagena has exhibited in Mexico, Japan, El Salvador, Belarus, Ecuador and Greece. Cartagena has served as Artist-in-Residence at ZEUM, Southern Exposure, and SF Art Commission's WritersCorps. He has given numerous workshops, including two Family Sundays and the Matches Program at SFMOMA, and has presented his collaboration with Log Cabin youth at the CO-LAB exhibit at SF State University's Fine Art Gallery in spring of 2002. He teaches Printmaking, Mixed Media and Photography at Arrowsmith Academy and the work of his students has been exhibited at SFMOMA's window galleries and Horizons Unlimited. He also teaches printmaking at Berkeley's New Age Academy. Cartagena has served on the roster of Leap, Imagination in Learning and Young Audiences of the Bay Area. Cartagena's work is in numerous private and institutional collections, including the Honolulu Academy of Arts, Honolulu, Hawaii, The Contemporary Art Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii, The Oxbow School of Art, Napa, CA & the Collection of Egnatia Odos in Thessaloniki, Greece. |