Daniel Anguilu, James Burns, Tierney L. Malone, Angel Quesada, Michael C. Rodriguez, Roland Saldaña, and Dandee Warhol "F" Team

As a continuation of the “Famous Monsters” mural created by Daniel Anguilu for the 2011-2012 season, Lawndale Art Center presents a collaborative mural by Daniel Anguilu, James Burns, Tierney L. Malone, Angel Quesada, Michael C. Rodriguez, Roland Saldaña(Sode) and Dandee Warhol on view August 24, 2012 – January 12, 2013. This project is the first collaborative effort for this group of artists. Elements of street art will help to navigate the narrative design and special attention will be paid to complimenting the building’s historic nature and location. Alex Luster will document the process and present a digital-short to accompany an artist panel to be held at Lawndale.

This project is generously sponsored by Kinzelman Art Consulting and Power Electrical.

Daniel Anguilu started painting graffiti at an early age. Mostly using freight trains and walls as his canvases, his art is increasingly visible around his hometown of Houston, Texas, and highly concentrated in the East End. Anguilu has been invited and traveled to many cities in the US, Mexico, Peru, Spain, and Italy to paint graffiti and to participate in graffiti art exhibits. He has also visited Asia, Africa, and Central America to enrich his knowledge of pre-colonial art and the cultures in those regions. Anguilu’s style is deeply inspired by his Mexican heritage, and mostly manifests itself as large scale, aerosol murals. Anguilu strongly believes in freedom of expression and the need to use this expression to decorate public spaces. It is through this individual and group expression that we are able to expose each other to the many faces of our local and global community. On the local scene, Anguilu has participated in group art shows at the Mexican Consulate of Houston, Poissant Gallery, Aerosol Warfare Gallery and the Orange Show. He worked on a project with DiverseWorks called “This Old House”, and has completed pieces for Neiman Marcus and Converse as well. You can also see his work at the Houston Skate Park. Currently, Anguilu is focusing on painting public spaces in the Houston area and working in collaboration with local businesses and homeowners. Through his many conversations with Houstonians over the years, Anguilu has noticed that many people, whether involved in art or not, support his efforts to bring his art to our public spaces.

As the father of two young children, James Burns makes art and finds beauty in the mundane idiosyncrasies of everyday life. Although he studied at the Art Institute of Houston, most of his artistic experience comes from his fifteen+ years in the Houston graffiti subculture. “Street Art” has always been very important to Burns, but as a family man, he is much more able to focus on his fine art pursuits.

Tierney Malone is a modern-day storyteller who creates works on paper and mixed media constructions. He uses the canon of African-American history and pop culture to help him create contemporary tales about life. By invoking colorful and emotionally charged figures from jazz, sports, and literature, Malone makes powerful and sensitive works that are both visually beautiful and politically provocative. Malone is a recipient of the 1997 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, given every two years to promising artists. His work has been exhibited at DiverseWorks, Houston; Project Row Houses, Houston; and Robert McClain & Co. His works are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Kansas City Jazz Museum, Kansas City, Missouri.

Born in Laredo, Texas in 1972 Angel Quesada has been active in the Arts since 1990. He attended Massachusetts College of Art as well as the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston where he studied painting/printmaking & inter-related media. Since 2005, Angel Quesada has been a fixture of the Texas art scene; as a visual artist, curator, art preparator and arts administrator. He has served as an education coordinator at the Mexican-American Cultural Center (Austin) and on the Cultural Funding arts review panel for the City of Austin and is a consultant and arts activist who has also served as a Juror for several national and regional art exhibitions. Quesada has individually organized over twenty exhibits and touring exhibits at galleries, cultural centers and museums throughout Texas since 2005. As an artist, he has participated in over forty exhibitions and has created over seventeen murals and public artworks in Texas.  In addition, he has work in many prestigious collections throughout the US including private collections and museums. As a production manager, art preparator and curator/exhibit designer, Quesada has produced over sixty unique art exhibits in collaboration with various galleries, museums, institutions, as well as other alternative spaces.

Michael C. Rodriguez is an Illustrator and Graphic Designer based in Houston, Texas. Though most of his work deals with a variety of themes, his current illustrative series focuses on composing romantic narratives with underlying themes of love, isolation, deprivation and man’s destructive nature. Heavily inspired by vintage illustration styles and nature, Rodriguez combines these elements into a modern context to create both personal narratives and storytelling. He works with a variety of traditional media such as ink, acrylic, watercolor, gouache and spray paint mixed with digital illustration and painting. He has exhibited nationwide and his illustrations and design work have appeared in a number of US and International publications including SPIN, Wired, Billboard, Alternative Press, Free Press Houston, Houston Press and Houston Chronicle.

Roland Saldaña, first started creating graffiti-style drawings and paintings. In 1998 he worked at Six Flags Astroworld in the airbrush department, painting T-Shirts and hats. He eventually opened his own business called Artistik Misfits, an airbrush shop in the mall, and eventually focused on creating murals as well as Aerosol Advertisements ads for Tecate, Pepsi, Smirnoff, and Dodge. In 2008, he was contracted by Jeep, who sponsored a trip to Aspen, Colorado for the Winter XGames where he airbrushed promotional items for guests attending the X-Games. Saldaña’s passion is creating large-scale murals around the city for everyone to view.

Dandee Danao, better known as Dandee Warhol, has been active in the Houston art community since 2010. He was awarded Reader’s Choice Best Artist by the Houston Press in 2011. Warhol is self-taught through experimentation in various painting techniques since 2006. His primary medium is acrylic on canvas with a style that consists of straight and defined lines and undetectable brush strokes. Warhol is also a curator who has organized shows for Susan G. Komen, Cirque Du Soleil and Moet & Hennessy Co. as well as his own projects. A founder of an innovative art gallery called War’Hous Visual Studios, Warhol has led the organization by promoting and exposing Houston’s emerging talents to new opportunities. The recently founded non-profit division, entitled War’Hous Foundation, aims to help and support the Houston art community.