D.R. artist-activist to visit WMU as part of School of Art lecture series

Contact: Mark Schwerin

KALAMAZOO, Mich.--A noted artist and activist from the Dominican Republic will visit the area late this month to speak as part of the Frostic School of Art Visiting Artist and Scholar Lecture Series.

Jorge Pineda will speak at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 30, in Room 2008 of the Richmond Center for Visual Arts. His talk is free and open to the public.

Pineda

Jorge Pineda

Pineda was born in Barahona, Dominican Republic. A visual artist, his areas of work include painting, sculpture, installation, sketch and other mediums. Pineda is also recognized for his activism through his artwork, generating a multitude of works that denounce child abuse, both physical and psychological, and focus on such issues as environmentalism, gender equality and immigration.

Pineda's interest in art began at a very young age, drawing on a large blackboard that his mother, a teacher, had set up at home for him and his siblings. His artistic ability was evident early on.

"We were three sets of twins, and my mother divided the board in six so we could all paint," Pineda says. "My sister gave me her piece, and eventually the entire board ended up for me to express myself."

He studied architecture at the Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo and lithograph at the Studio Bordas in Paris. In 1985, he held his first solo exhibition at the Gallery of Art Nouveau.

Pineda has exhibited internationally in Madrid, Valencia and Gijón, Spain; Lima, Peru; Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; and New York. In 2014, the Dominican Ministry of Culture, in cooperation with the Dominican Museum of Modern Art and the Valencian Institute of Modern Art, opened Pineda's solo exhibition, "After All, Tomorrow Is Another Day." He exhibited at the 52nd Biennale di Venezia and the XXIII Bienal de Artes Visuales de Santo Domingo, where he won first prize for installation.

Visiting Artist and Scholar Lecture Series

The Richmond Center is staging a series of lectures throughout the fall semester in conjunction with its exhibition schedule in support of the thematic approach to its calendar of events.

For more information on the Frostic School of Art Visiting Artist and Scholar Lecture Series, visit wmich.edu/art/exhibitions/visitingartists/.

For more news, arts and events, visit wmich.edu/news.

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