SANTA BARBARA, CA.- In the self-titled exhibition Mario Ybarra Jr.: The Tío Collection, artist Mario Ybarra Jr. constructs a museological tribute to his family displaying both fictional and non-fictional objects from his uncles' lives, including his and their photographs, artifacts, and other handmade objects in a faux-history museum at CAF. Inspired by artists like Fred Wilson and the Museum of Jurassic Technology, Los Angeles, CA, Ybarra Jr. examines and deconstructs the traditional display of art and artifacts in institutions of authority (e.g., museums and libraries), with a particular focus on the inclusion of the Chicano experience.

Examining the cultivation of his own style, the artist utilizes personal, cultural, and temporal elements to organize The Tío Collection revealing how familial, generational, geographical, and cultural influences filter down and are inherent to who we become. Moving away from common stereotypes of the Mexican-American experience by portraying a diverse, multigenerational, and heterogeneous population, Mario Ybarra Jr.: The Tío Collection is an homage: an attempt to document the cultural field and add to the historical record the presence and contributions of the Chicano community in the United States. As a companion to the exhibition, a scholarly publication documents Mario Ybarra Jr.: The Tío Collection, providing in-depth information on the collection’s artifacts.

Wilmington-based artist Mario Ybarra Jr. received an MFA from University of California, Irvine, and a BFA from Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA. He is a visual and performance artist, educator, and activist known for combining street culture with fine art. Ybarra Jr. has exhibited internationally in major museums and galleries including: Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Tate Modern, London, England; and J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA. In 2002, Ybarra Jr. and his wife, Karla Diaz, co-founded the artist-collective Slanguage, where Diaz oversees exhibitions and programming. He is represented by Honor Fraser, Los Angeles, CA.

Bloom Projects: Annie Lapin, History =ing
With allusions to a multiplicity of painterly spaces and affects, Annie Lapin's paintings examine and aestheticize the materiality of painting. Monochromatic paintings, composed from muddy paint residue are sourced from Lapin’s used paintbrush jars. The paint also forms thick borders around the canvases, creating a "frame" of painting, made out of the paint itself. Calling into question notions of context and subjectivity, Lapin's highly distilled works consider the essence of painting and poetics.

Los Angeles-based artist Annie Lapin received an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a BA from Yale University, New Haven, CT. Lapin has recently shown at the Pasadena Museum of California Art; Grand Arts, Kansas City, MO; and Angles Gallery, Santa Monica, CA. She is represented by Honor Fraser, Los Angeles, CA.