Meet the team

L to R: Fabiola Valenzuela, Tierno, photography, 2020. Karla Garcia, Home and Land Project Series I, photography, unfired terracotta, 2020.

Alison Starr, Untitled, leather glove and beads, 2019. 

We are team of artists, curators, and educators at Dallas College - Mountain View Campus. We want to remind us of the critical nature of art in history, life, and society. We are transFORMable.

Meet Alison

As an interdisciplinary artist, curator, gallery director, and lecturer, Alison Starr draws on her experiences with cultures and communities that have been impacted by outside forces. Beginning with Bikini Islanders displaced by atomic testing, her own exploration continued in work with Vietnam War era refugees and most recently with descendants of slaves in Portobelo, Panama. Starr's work and life are influenced by visual, performing, and musical artists; the effect their work has had and issues the work addresses.

She currently works for Dallas College, Mountain View campus, as Gallery Director and Permanent Collections Manager. Her practice includes writing, performance art, and curating work that addresses issues of personal displacement. She holds an MFA from UTA, is a contributing member of ART BEEF/BEEFHAUS, recently lectured on performance at the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston and exhibited video documentation of performance and lectured at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, The MAC Dallas, and Performance Is Alive Satellite NYC. 

Artist Influences: 

Pain and Intimacy - Nina Simone, Moses Sumney, Betye Saar, Shirin Neshat, Pepon Osorio 
Displacement – Ana Mendieta, Doris Salcedo, Do Ho Suh 
Confronting Societal Expectations – Martha Wilson, Kalup Lindsey, Mark Bradford 
Social Justice – Tania Brugera, Carrie Mae Weems, Walter Benjamin, and Hannah Arendt 
Absurdities of life – Yoko Ono, Aki Sasamoto, Yayoi Kussama 
Laughing at herself – Joseph Beuys and Ryan Trecartin 

http://www.alisonstarr.org/

Instagram: @alijostarr

Meet Fabiola

Fabiola Valenzuela is an Intermedia artist that lives in Dallas, TX. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting with a minor in Art History from the University of Texas at Arlington.  Fabiola’s work concentrates on identity and memory through painting, installation and sculpture. Her work has been shown throughout Texas including the Kimbell Art Museum, Texas Biennial in 2017, and more recently participated in the first iteration of Modern Billings with the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. She is currently working on programming and curatorial work at Mountain View College in Dallas, TX.  

Artist Statement: 

Through the use of language and my body I try to break down certain stereotypes that I have been subjected to. I realize that there are many layers to our Latino/a/x culture. These pieces are meant to be conversation starters, and although they are from my point of view, I encourage the viewer to interpret them through their experiences in hopes that we will gain a better understanding of our identity in a country that tries to define us by only appearances. Within this body of work, I examine my identity and culture to better understand what it means to be myself in this country today. 

Artists influences:  

Glenn Ligon, Felix Gonzalez Torres, Margarita Cabrera, Anna Maria Maiolino, Joseph Beuys, Robert Rauschenberg, Zoe Leonard, Pepon Osorio, Jennifer Ling Datchuk, Teresa Margolles, Doris Salcedo, Mark Bradford, Amalia Mesa-Bains, William Pope.L, Theaster Gates, Adrian Piper, Ragnar Kjartansson 

Exhibition influences: 

México Inside Out: Themes in Art Since 1990 – Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth 

Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985 – Hammer Museum  

What is my work about?  

My identity, culturally, SUBTLE, HINTS, keep u guessin, keep me guessin,    

Text based work, identity, personal notes, process, processing of self, memory, identity 

http://www.fabiolavalenzuela.com/

Instagram: @ayeefabs

Meet Karla

Karla García is a Mexican born, American based artist. She attended the University of North Texas where she received an MFA degree in Ceramics and a Certificate of Museum Education.In 2019 García was awarded the Top Prize for the 6th Artspace 111 Texas Juried Exhibition. She was a visiting artist at the Dallas Museum of Art where she created a four-month participatory installation for the Center of Creative Connections. She was also selected in the Latin American Art Competition in New York. Most recently García attended an artist residency in St. Raphael, France and is an art educator at the Dallas College Mountain View Campus in Dallas, Texas.

García creates sculptural and installation artworks that combine ideas of migration and the human condition. She brings her own experience as a migrant and reflects on the immigration realities at the border of Mexico and the U.S. In her work she uses terracotta clay to create naturalistic cacti forms inspired by the way physical or environmental obstacles alter their growth patterns. These sculptures are installed at home and photographed to create a surreal desert landscape of unfired clay. The cactus form is a metaphor for our ability to survive conflict and difficulties.

Artist Influences:

Her work is influenced by artworks that speak of the human condition through material culture such as the installations by Damian Ortega, Teresa Margolles, Doris Salcedo, Gabriel Orozco, Joseph Beuys, and Margarita Cabrera.  

https://www.karlamichellgarcia.com/

Instagram: @karlagarciaart