Artist Conversation for Here All Along with Sol Diaz-Peña & Jax Neal

Here All Along in Lawndale’s John M. O’Quinn Gallery is a collection of new work by Sol Diaz-Peña, created during their time as a 2023/2024 Artist Studio Program participant brought forth by a journey of rematriation to their Zapotec roots in Oaxaca, Mexico.

More info here.

Sol Diaz-Peña is a contemporary artist and community organizer whose work encompasses a multidisciplinary practice grounded in painting and photography.

Diaz-Peña has exhibited work throughout their native city of Houston, Texas, including Project Row Houses, Houston City Hall, BOX 13 ArtSpace, FLATS, Arts and Culture Lab, Wedge Space, and Sawyer Yards. They have been awarded residencies at Lawndale Art & Performance Center, Artists’ Literacy Institute (New York), and Project Row Houses (Houston). In 2021, they were a recipient of the Idea Fund award for their project The Place I Know; most recently, they were awarded a place in On Communities Masterclass with Magnum Photos and Houston Center of Photography. Headshot by Yael Martinez.

Jax Neal is a poet, choreographer, and performance artist based in Los Angeles, California. Neal uses language and movement as technologies of intimacy. His performance work often combines vulnerable storytelling with extreme tests of physical and mental endurance. Neal writes about durational, endurance-based performance, folk art and culture, and spirituality in the arts. Neal is a Houston Youth Poet Laureate Emeritus, and a National Youth Poet Laureate Ambassador selected by the Library of Congress. In 2023, his essay, “The Cost of Whiteness” was a finalist for the Ellie Wiesel Prize in Ethics. In the summer of 2024, Neal was selected by the Olympic Committee and the City of Paris to share his poetry in the International Cultural Olympiad. Currently Neal serves as a California Arts Fellow at the Desert X in the Coachella Valley.