Written by Jasmine Hightower, Copy Editor.

Visiting artist Chico Sierra opened his exhibition, The Good Sun, on Feb.13 at the Dedo Maranville Gallery in the Fine Arts Building. 

Originally from El Paso, Texas, Sierra’s artwork consists of the vibrancy of indigenous culture, pop art and his own cultural identity. Most of his artwork includes bright and vibrant colors and line patterns to help bring out all the elements. 

Before the exhibition officially opened, Sierra spent his time in the gallery doing workshops with art students and live painting some of his art work, which many students enjoyed. 

Zaria Davenport, a sophomore art major, reminisced about seeing Sierra in action as she visited the gallery before opening. 

“I think my favorite piece is the mural, Slow Collision, and honestly because I got to watch him paint it. I would come in here and first it would be the hand and the little blue things and I came in here the next day and he had the people,” said Davenport. “He made it this week while he was here and so watching him create this piece was amazing and so it has become one of my favorites. To see where he started, and I can pick the pieces and how he branched out to all these different things and how he connected it all was very interesting.” 

Gallery Director Mark Errol previously knew Sierra through a past residency and believed that his students would understand and get the idea of the importance of research, hard work and culture through Sierra’s artwork and be inspired by his untraditional style. 

“Chico and I did a residency together at a place called Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts up in Gatlinburg, Tennessee two years ago. We weren’t in the same studio or anything but I saw him working on this piece over here (Familia RadicalÉ) and I was just blown away by his dedication to his work and had been following him ever since and because of what I’m trying to do to with the gallery I thought he would be the perfect kind of artist to get in here next,” said Errol. 

“As an educator I take away what our students ask, I love how they get involved in asking good questions and I listen to those and try to pick up on those to help use further down the road to pick up educational things,” said Errol. “As an artist I just get inspired, as a gallery director I get inspired for creating opportunities for our students to see something different in our community.”

Sierra’s work mostly focuses on identity and humanity, he hopes that when people view his work, they will see the message of the connectivity of both humanity and nature. 

“I mean the main message is hopefully people see a interplay of nature and humanity and think about our place in it and how we interact with each other,” said Sierra. “There’s a bit of this message. Each painting is about the same thing, which is just our interconnectedness with natural elements and big ideas, small ideas and our humanity and what makes us special. It’s not our dominance over nature but our being part of nature.” 

The Good Sun exhibition will run in the Fine Arts Building until April. 14. 

Photos by Jasmine Hightower.