SUR:biennial in association with Tiger Strikes Asteroid Los Angeles is pleased to present Life Affirming Moments: En Route, a two-person art exhibition featuring individual and collaborative work by Cynthia Luján and Jorge Mujica. Having successfully worked together on past endeavors, the artists made the decision to embark on a 3-month creative process in what the two describe as a “contemplative exploration of life’s pathways.” For the current exhibition, the artists draw inspiration from materials and imagery associated with transportation (recurrent motifs in Lujan’s oeuvre) to construct and activate a metaphorical journey of introspection. Through a fusion of each artists’ aesthetics and thoughtfully coordinated 2 and 3 dimensional interventions, the gallery space unfolds like a meandering path, inviting viewers to pause and reflect. Guided by familiar visual cues found in everyday human movement, these pauses offer a serene interplay between individual and collaborative artworks.

For Luján, objects found in public spaces (traffic cones, chain-link fences, painted street lanes, chevrons, signage, cement, asphalt, brick, grass, etc.) serve as surrogates of power as she repurposes and subverts these symbols in an effort to reveal the constrictive fabric of American social architecture. 

Mujica’s contributions for this exhibition represent an evolution of his rigorous and longstanding engagement with physical materials. By manipulating flat industrial surfaces, Mujica creates freestanding structures whose carved pathways and varied trenches result in positive and negative spaces that are designed to interfere with viewers’ perceptions. In so doing, Mujica beckons visitors to contemplate the interplay between real space and the painted surface, and the physiological and psychological effects the objects provoke as they navigate through the exhibition space. 

By collectively orchestrating these moments, Luján and Mujica have realized an experience and showcase that will hopefully serve as a validation and celebration of each person’s unique journey while encouraging introspection and a deeper connection with the artists’ poetic gestures. 

Life Affirming Moments: En Route is part of SUR:biennial 2023 programming. For more info about SUR:biennial please check @surbiennial on Instagram.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

Cynthia Luján is an artist who works regionally in Southern CA and lives in Unincorporated Los Angeles with a BFA in painting and a minor in Russian language from California State University, Long Beach. Her public murals and other collaborative projects, which can be seen across Southern California, focuses on the mission of creating more access while addressing barriers created through social conditioning. Her most recent public project, “Outside In” (2022), consists of a 24 x 22 foot mixed media mural created for Saddleback College, Mission Viejo, CA. Her goal is to foster dialogue to create interdependent spaces that prioritize safety, accessibility, and inclusion. Through her work she seeks to create a generative social architecture that fosters fulfillment, empathy & belonging.

Jorge Mujica is the Director of Creative Arts Coalition to Transform Urban Space (CACtTUS) and has shown at M+B 22’, Ace Hotel 22’, Bozo Mag 21’, (Los Angeles). Centro Cultural de La Raza 21’ (San Diego). Hi-Bye 20’, Casa Del Ahuizote 20’ (Mexico City). Horse and Pony 18’, Copyright 19’ (Berlin) And commissioned by the Museum of Latin American Art to create “Long Beach High Five” a public sculpture at Robert E. Gumbiner Park in Long Beach, CA in 2019. He earned an MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Yale University 12’, MA in Visual and Critical Studies from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago 10’, and a dual BA in Political Science and Art History from Cal State University Bakersfield 08’.

Mujica’s designs are realized through a process of rehearsed drawing exercises that combine automatic movements and a choreographed mapping of space resulting in the transformation of flat materials into his singular free-standing painting surfaces. While acknowledging certain conventions of painting as an illusionistic portal on a flat surface, he also embraces the autonomy of the sculptural object that occupies an actual physical space; a duality in Mujica’s work that manifests panoramic ruptures.