American flag of immigrant portraits
The moment the presidential election was final, Oakland painter Monica Lundy sank into a “pit of despair.” On Nov. 10, she pulled herself out of it enough to form a response — get 100 California artists together on a collaboration.
She got on the phone to gallery owner Walter Maciel in Los Angeles, and it spread like a chain letter. The only instructions were, “do an 8inch-by-8-inch portrait of an immigrant,” she says.
The resulting exhibition, “With Liberty and Justice for Some,” is at the San Francisco Arts Commission Main Gallery in the Veterans Building. The show is up for just two weeks because it was not on the schedule. But when gallery director Meg Shiffler saw the work at the Maciel Gallery, she squeezed it in as the first installment of “Sanctuary City,” a yearlong tribute to immigrants and refugees in the sanctuary city of San Francisco.
“We felt like it was important enough to have it here, even if just for two weeks,” says Maysoun Wazwaz, manager of education and public programs for SFAC Galleries. It was also a sure thing because 1,000 people came to the opening in L.A.
“People were really excited that somebody was doing a project like this at such a poignant time,” says Lundy, 43, who cranked out seven immigrant paintings of her own in six weeks. “I had to be prepared in case there wasn’t enough work, because it was my idea.”
She and Maciel co-curated the show and made the invitation list. Only professionals with regular studio practice were eligible. Nobody declined, even though the deadline was as tight as one week for artists who were slow to get the chain letter invitation.
Among the contributors was Oakland painter Hung Liu, Lundy’s MFA adviser at Mills College, who helped crystallize the concept and corral the artists. She has four pieces in the SFAC show, more than Lundy, who has three.
But Lundy gets extra points because she packed and loaded the squares into the trunk and back seat of an Audi sedan and drove them up from L.A.
Installed, “With Liberty and Justice for Some” looks as if it was designed specifically for the SFAC Gallery. The impact hits as soon as you walk in and are confronted by 89 of the portraits forming an American flag. The paintings are grouped by color palette, so the cooler shades of blue and gray form the stars and the warmer reds and yellows form the stripes.
Lundy’s own mother, Maura DiBartolo, an Italian immigrant, is in the stripes, and her close friend, Nicholas Sher, a South African, is in the stars.
The media vary from painting to photography to collage to the embroidered self-portrait of Maria Peneres, taken from her own green card picture.
All of the works are for sale, at prices ranging from $100 to $2,500, with 30 percent of the proceeds going to support immigration rights.
The Los Angeles show raised $6,000, and works that went into private collections were replaced. The number of artists willing to contribute keeps growing.
“I see this as an ongoing thing,” says Lundy, “At least for the next four years, unfortunately.”