Artists Bios

Juan de Dios Soto

Artistic Director and Curator

Arael Domínguez is a Tijuana native living in San Francisco. After getting a B.A in Studio Art from San Francisco State University, she worked as a set designer for different theater companies, including 42nd Street Moon, Brava Theater and Cutting Ball Theater. Additionally, she has broad teaching experience in photography and painting. Her personal work is inspired by the mind-body connection and how we perceive reality through the lens of emotion. The goal of her work is to inspire and transform people and herself through art while exploring all possibilities that art has to offer.

Arael Dominguez

Alexa Treviño, LexMex, is a Xicana Photographer + Artist based in the Mission District of San Francisco, Califas.

In 2009, She co-established Artillery Art Gallery + Studio San Francisco. Her practice is based on creating portraits that empower + reflect diverse communities. Striving to work with individuals that are passionate about their way of life. This collaboration is key in transforming the vision into the bold photographs that represent the photographer and the individual.

Alexa Trevino

Italo Valle Sessarego, nació en Lima, Peru el 21 de Febrero de 1975. Vivió toda su infancia y adolescencia en el distrito de Lince, lugar de sus amores. Desde muy pequeno mostró interés por las artes, le gustaba pasar mucho tiempo pintando y disenando en el estudio de arquitecto de su hermano. Cuando llego a su adolescencia la vida se encargaría de juntarlo con el grupo artístico Origenes, donde aprende los fundamentos de las danzas peruanas y empieza su interés por la cultura Afro Peruana. A la edad de 24 años y sin terminar los estudios de administración, Ítalo inmigra para los Estados Unidos. Llegando inicialmente a Nueva York, el empieza su travesía por este país con el afán de buscar un mejor presente y futuro. Pero malos fueron los tiempos que lo obligan a mudarse a California. Es aquí en el Area de la Bahía donde pasan los más importantes acontecimientos de su vida y su motivación por aprender y conectarse con sus raíces peruanas se hace una necesidad. En el año 2017 Ítalo integra la agrupación De Rompe y Raja donde aprende los primeros toques del cajón y empieza su amorío con ese instrumento. En el año 2018 Ítalo es conectado con Juan de Dios Soto, director del grupo Jaranon y Bochinche, quien lo inspira y dirige en su formación como artista hasta la fecha. Italo Valle, tendrá su primera intervención utilizando acrílicos y técnicas mixtas sobre cajones en una exposición para el Mission Cultural Center en San Francisco.

Italo Valle

Karina Garcia is a Mexican Artist currently residing in the Bay Area. She graduated from the Academy of Art University of San Francisco with a degree in Fashion Design and Fine Arts. Karina currently works as a Fashion Designer for Old Navy Co. In her spare time Karina enjoys traveling around the world looking for inspiration to reinvent her creative visions. Capturing the cultures and traditional values of her travel to spark creativity that are showcased in her artwork.

Karina Garcia has followed the Peruvian culture for almost 7 years. Has an infinite love for their food, diversity, music and rich culture. Showing her minimalistic and sophisticated style, Karina is proudly presenting the series “Las Cajoneras” where with fashion illustrations shows the loosen drummers when playing the “Cajon”.

Karina Garcia

Lucía Leal is an Educator and a Visual Artist based in San Francisco. She was born in Sonora México where she lived the first years of her childhood and eventually moved to the South Bay. She studied Cinema at San Francisco State University where she got to explore a lot of film photography and motion pictures. Aside from Film and Photography, her art studies cover Printmaking and Papel Picado. Lucía’s works present mostly people who inspire her in her life and whose portraits tell a story in a realistic and sometimes surrealistic way. Her works have been exhibited in galleries such as SomArts, Acción Latina, and recently at Harvard University.

Lucia Leal

Solange Bonilla was born in Lambayeque, Peru. Solange has been a performer most of her life. She started dancing “marinera nortena” at the age of 5, then she became interested in performing and dancing Afro Peruvian landos and festejos. When Solange moved to San Francisco in 1993, she yearn for Peruvian music and dance. About 15 years ago, she joined TPCC and started exploring her Afro Peruvian roots through playing the cajon and dancing.

She first became interested in photography while taking classes at City College of San Francisco. After obtaining her Master’s in Public Health from SF State University, her interest in photography became stronger as she found this to be the outlet to her passion for social equity and justice and her desire to impact change. In 2014, she participated in the 27th Annual Solo Mujeres Show: HOME/inside out - exploring the symbolic space of home, through photography. In 2017, she participated in the the 30th Anniversary of Solo Mujeres Show: Revolution - a celebration honoring resistance, which takes many forms, but is rooted in the revolutionary act of love.

Solange Bonilla

Ivan Camilo Lopez is a painter, sculptor and earth activist. Born in Bogotá Colombia, since the age of three he has resided in San Francisco Mission District where in 2009, he launched Artillery Art and Apparel Gallery to amplify the voice of nature through art and inspire people to live in a more harmonious way to nature. Ivan’s creative source comes from his profound interconnection to the earth and the natural world.

His art practice consists of learning to express creativity through understanding the four elements: fire, water, air and earth. Allowing himself and his art to inspire people to harness the four elements in a creative way to problem solve for our livelihood and harmonize with the ecosystem around us. We have the ability to work with fire, air, earth and water in a regenerative way for the Earth and all living beings.

Ivan Camilo Lopez

Vanessa Angeldones-Soto is an artist from the San Francisco Bay Area in California. Her passion for art stems from being raised by a family of artists who have inspired her to develop her creativity. Her work is centered around the “poetry of materials”, which is presented by accumulation, repetition and mass. She uses simple, everyday materials in sculptures because they work as examples to show that everything and anything can be an art supply, and it just depends on how one looks at it. The repetition and accumulation of materials allows her to bring out exciting qualities of the materials, as well as forms the structure of her pieces. She also has experience working in printmaking, specifically using reduction techniques, as well as photo-based printmaking.