MARRIAGE AND MYTH - MATRIMONIO Y MITO
An exhibition by Kira Carrillo Corser
APRIL 12 - JULY 6, 2008
Opening Reception with the artist, Friday, April 11 6 - 8 PM
Painting, photography, video, painted silks, and the installation "A Bed of Fragile Opposites" by artist Kira Carrillo Corser and text from Monterey County residents exploring new and traditional beliefs about marriage.

Half of all marriages end in divorce and over the last three decades the rate of remarriage after divorce dropped by 40 percent, yet few artists address this crisis in their art.

This show is about contemporary beliefs about marriage, with Corser’s personal experience being at the core. What happens when our beliefs and experiences clash? The show includes painted photographs and 10-foot paintings on silk, a video by the artist titled "Hands Talk: For Better or for Worse" and interactive installations such as a community piece about marriage titled "Walls of Belief" with cards showing only the age and gender of the person commenting. Corser strives to use art to promote public dialogue and bring questions to the surface.

For over 20 years, Kira Carrillo Corser’s exhibitions with poet Frances Payne Adler have brought the voices and faces of those struggling for recovery and health care to legislators and public spaces. She has effectively and artistically influenced policy makers and community activists. Her current work about Marriage grew from her MFA thesis from John F. Kennedy University in Berkeley in 2006 and now includes statements and images from Greenfield, Salinas, Monterey, and other communities. Corser pulls imagery from personal recovery and includes private interviews about changing beliefs on marriage.

Corser’s work has shown nationally, including exhibiting in state capital buildings, universities, galleries, and the U.S. Senate and Congress. She has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the California Arts Council. She works as Arts and Education Director for the Arts Council for Monterey County while pursuing her art.
Gabilan Galllery. Included in regular museum admission

"TRES MUJERES: THE THREE WOMEN' EXHIBITION
FEBRUARY 14 - APRIL 27, 2008

This exhibition includes three local artists Michelle Sarabia, Rebecka Ramirez, Norma Lopez Molina presenting work in ceramics, photography and painting representing subjects of solitude, existence and the meaning of being present.
      Filipina artist Michelle Sarabia creates mixed media drawings which demonstrate a powerful blend of chaos and movement, yet, stand quite sound next to her delicate explorative glazed ceramics.
      Latina artist Rebecka Ramirez has created five idiosyncratic ceramic works that she describes as a combination of being led to give up on symmetry and embrace her innate curiosity for imperfection.
      Puerto Rican artist, Norma Lopez Molina, routinely must create flawless magazine "cover ready" photography for a living. Yet in her art work she decided that the experimental use of an inexpensive plastic and digital camera format was her way to stage six exploratory visuals, bellowing out for artistic liberty!
In the last few decades, historians have endeavored to rediscover the artistic accomplishments of women and to incorporate them into the narrative of art history that has neglected them. This exhibition recognizes the creativity of women artists in the 21st century.
       This exhibition at the National Steinbeck Center is supported in part by the Lauralie and J. Irvine Fund of the Community Foundation for Monterey County and the Harden Foundation. Public Programs Sponsors: Alvarez Technology Group, Inc.; Full Steam Marketing & Design; Kennedy, Archer, & Harray; Pacific Gas and Electric Company; Penguin Group USA; Rabobank; Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System.