Art residency and community programs

RESIDENT ARTIST

Ann Trinca

Ann Trinca is a photographer and curator living in Northern California. Her work explores themes of color, spirituality, and human interaction. She has traveled to Indonesia, Argentina, Myanmar, South Korea, Japan, Guatemala, and Mexico in search of moments that express her fascination with light, color, and the absurd. Her images and travel writing have been featured on sites such as womentravelphotographers.com and wearetravelgirls.com.

Mainly self-taught, she has been mentored by photographers Ron Zak and Norma I. Quintana and has participated in photography trips over the past ten years. She is inspired by the history of street photography and models her color work after innovators such as Steve McCurry and William Eggleston and the poetic black and white images of Manuel Álvarez Bravo and Daido Moriyama. As an independent curator and intermittent gallery owner, Trinca has produced numerous group and solo exhibitions including regional and international artists. For the past 20 years, she has been an arts administrator working with prominent organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area. After coaching other visual artists in career development, she is now refocusing her passions to embrace her own talents and personal visions.

RESIDENT ARTIST

Pilar Acevedo

Pilar Acevedo is a visual artist who has created works that reveal hidden stories through mixed media art. Inspired by childhood memories, vintage photographs, and poetry, she explores themes of child sexual abuse and domestic violence, inviting viewers to see untold stories. 

Through collage, her narrative displays “memory as layers” and also uses the medium to create the fantastical; recycling items to create a visual narrative with an ever evolving written narrative. 

Having graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago, her work has been exhibited in multiple museums including the National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago, The National Hispanic Cultural Center Art Museum, the Santa Paula Arts museum, as well as numerous galleries. Her work has been written about in The Multimedia Works of Contemporary Latin American Woman Writers and Artists, by Dr. Jane Lavery and Sr. Sarah Bowskill.

GUEST ARTIST

Yarla Landeros

Yarla Landeros is a Guadalajaran artist whose abstract paintings combine the softness of organic forms with occasional geometrical elements, achieving an ethereal yet dynamic composition. 

Her creative process is introspective, from the body, she dives into the flow of the present moment, allowing intuition and spontaneity to guide her works.

She has lived in five different countries and in 2024 her work was individually exhibited in “Juego al Fuego” and “Pies en la Tierra” and has also participated in group exhibitions in the Queretaro Art Museum (MAQRO) and in different galleries around Mexico. She directs Abierto Galeria in Cervecería Hércules, in Querétaro. 

RESIDENT ARTIST

Marco Torres

Marco E Torres is an emerging artist with a degree in Art from the University of California, Santa Cruz. As an artist working with pastels, oil paints, and graphite, he continues to experiment and create through a philosophy of mindfulness and meditation. His work, which spans many social, political, and visual topics, reflects his lived experience growing up in California and his curiosity to reconnect with his Mexican heritage through flora, fauna, and religious iconography from Atotonilco and San Miguel de Allende.

RESIDENT ARTIST

Carmenza Kafarela

Carmenza Kafarela is a Colombian plastic and textile artist. Through the #soyderma project, Carmenza uses drawing, narrative and knitting to chronicle her experience with atopic dermatitis, a disease she has suffered since childhood, as well as to raise awareness of the realities, myths, and prejudices surrounding the skin, its color, condition and affections.

Carmenza, an activist, environmentalist and altruistic soul, seeks through her work and the plastic processes of drawing and weaving to consciously experience who we are and the different situations that surround and affect us, in order to remember, transform and reconstruct. She also uses this creative process, called “Reforesting the soul,” in the social projects she carries out, such as La Manta de la Solidaridad, a collective knitting activity that invites people to inspire and connect so they can help others.

Carmenza holds a masters degree in Plastic and Visual Arts from the El Bosque University, in Bogotá.

RESIDENT ARTIST

Serrana Sol del Castillo

Serrana Sol Del Castillo Astor is a graphic artist and creative director from Montevideo, Uruguay. She began her career following the footsteps of her father, the painter Héctor del Castillo Lassich, doing works in acrylic, ceramics and digital illustration.

Through more than 15 years of experience as a graphic designer and creative director, she has worked in some of the main agencies in Uruguay. She has received several awards for her work in design and illustration.

In 2017 she created Gauderia, a project that fuses art with fashion, making silk prints with unique designs that focus on the flora, fauna and customs of Uruguay.

VISITING ARTIST

Mauricio Toussaint

Mauricio Toussaint was born in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1960. He became interested in creating art from an early age and graduated from the Autonomous University of Guadalajara with a degree in architecture.

He began creating art on his own and dedicated himself to engraving from 1982 to 1984. In 1986, shortly after entering the engraving workshop of the Cabañas Cultural Institute, he collaborated as an assistant curator.

In 1995 Mauricio was awarded in two categories of the prestigious "VII Salón de Octubre:" First Place in Painting and Second Place in Drawing. He settled in Miami, Florida, where he showed his work in several galleries. Years later he moved to Tucson, Arizona, where he was a member of the artist collective Dinnerware Contemporary Art Gallery.

Mastering the technique of encaustic - beeswax and natural pigments - on amate paper and birchwood panels, he decided to also dedicate himself to photography, images accumulated over the years that have served for the conceptual construction of some of his paintings.

Mauricio has exhibited his work in several cities in Mexico as well as in Colombia, Spain, France, Korea and the United States of America. His work is part of several permanent collections in museums and cultural centers, such as the Tucson Museum of Art in Arizona; Udinotti Museum of Figurative Art in Scottsdale AZ; Institute of Culture of Zapopan, Jalisco; Raúl Anguiano Museum of Guadalajara and Guadalajara World Trade Center.

RESIDENT ARTIST

Antonio Castro H.

Antonio Castro H.  teaches graphic design and illustration at the University of Texas at El Paso, where he is a Professor in the Department of Art. He received a BFA in graphic design and printmaking from UTEP, and an MFA in visual communications from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. Prior to teaching, he was a designer with MithoffBurton Inc. in El Paso, Texas, and later a senior designer/art director at Parham Santana Design in New York City. His experience covers a wide range of design expertise, including book design, packaging, graphic identity, posters, and illustration. 

Antonio’s work has received numerous awards and it has been exhibited widely, including at the BICeBé International Poster Biennial in Bolivia, CIIPE Biennial Colorado International Invitational Poster Exhibition, BICM the International Poster Biennial in Mexico, the Golden Bee International Poster Exhibition in Moscow, and the International Poster Biennale in Warsaw.

He is a co-founder and co-organizer of Posters Without Borders, an invitational poster exhibition featuring work from internationally recognized designers. His work has been featured in several design publications, including the Print Regional Design Annual and Graphis New Talent. Most recently, his work has been included and awarded Gold and Platinum awards in the 2021 to 2025 Graphis Poster Annuals.

Stephanie Lear Henderson

Stephanie Lear Henderson is a painter who works primarily in hard-edge abstraction. Her work revolves around bold, saturated color and how colors communicate with each other and affect the observer. Her paintings contain forms that are simple, allowing the colors to express themselves without complications. Stephanie’s work reveals focus, precision, and evocative combinations of color.   She enjoys the challenge of painting perfectly clean lines freehand with a brush.​ Stephanie embraces the belief that color alters mood, outlook, and brings joy to life.

Stephanie lives and works in Atlanta, GA. A native of Thomasville, Georgia, Stephanie earned a B.A. in English from University of Virginia and an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Georgia.  Her work is shown in select galleries across the US.  She is the mother of three grown children and a French Bulldog.

RESIDENT ARTIST

Víctor López

Oaxaca-born Víctor López has presented his multidisciplinary work in more than 70 individual and group exhibitions, nationally and internationally, in countries including Uruguay, Sweden, Estonia and the United States, also being selected for the 5th and 6th Shinzaburo Takeda Engraving Biennial.

Víctor participated in "Native Corn", organized by Francisco Toledo to protest the use of transgenic corn, which took place at the San Agustín Arts Center, Oaxaca. He participated in the XI Alfredo Zalce National Biennial of Painting and Engraving, with an exhibition held at the Alfredo Zalce Museum of Contemporary Art in Morelia, Michoacán.

He was invited by Nueve Arte Urbano in 2017 to make a mural in Tallinn, Estonia, in commemoration of its 100th anniversary of independence, and in 2021 to participate in "Boundless Space", an exhibition and auction at Sothebys in New York, to benefit from "Burning Man." In 2022, he exhibited 11 canvases at "The Man" at the "Burning Man" center, participating with pictorial and graphic works.

Víctor is a founding member of "La Madriguera Gráfica" Collective, which promotes collective dialogue as an artistic-social exercise, through experimentation in various graphic disciplines. He completed his undergraduate studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Autonomous University of Querétaro.

RESIDENT ARTIST

Lian Kizner

Lian Kizner is a dancer and choreographer who debuted 18 years ago at Studio E in Queens, New York.

Lian's keen eye for character interpretation and direction earned her the Choreography award from Lehman College in 2019, before they invited her to choreograph for their department. Since graduating, Lian co-founded and is the artistic director of SteLi Dance company, which leverages its platform to contribute to both the creative canon and invest in community equality efforts.

Some of her choreographic credits include: Kraine Theater, Dixon Place, IATI Theater, The Players Theater, the streets of NYC (through Open Culture NYC), and more. In 2021, Lian debuted, “Negiot,” her first independent dance film as a Producer, Creative Director, and Choreographer. She is currently the company manager of Dancers Unlimited.

Lian has a deep passion for the arts and exploring the beauty of the human experience through connection, listening, and mind-body oneness.

RESIDENT ARTIST

Ginny Krueger

Ginny Krueger received her M.F.A. from Northern Illinois University in 1995, an Illinois Arts Council Award Recipient.

Ginny has been awarded numerous international residencies, including OxBow SAIC, Saugutuck, Mi, US; Gullkistan, Laugarvatn, Iceland; Skopelos Foundation, Skopelos, Greece; Arquetopia, Puebla, Mexico, and Art Print Residence, Barcelona, Spain.

She has had several solo and two-person shows, and is included in numerous collections nationwide. Ginny is well-known for her painting in the encaustic medium, and for her mixed media work with the encaustic medium, which has spanned more than two decades. Additionally, she enjoys working in cast glass, water media on paper, clay, and printmaking.

Arriving at Camino Al Arte on February 11, she is focused on further exploring the materiality and physicality of her work, most notably her abiding reverence for the natural world.

RESIDENT ARTIST

Rafael Ontiveros (Aper)

Rafael Ontiveros, also known as Aper, is a self-taught visual artist from the Mexican state of Querétaro. He is a graffiti artist, painter and ceramist with more than 25 years of professional experience.

Rafael has participated in four international biennials, two in China (Beijing and Dafen) and two in Mexico (Pedro Coronel and José Atanacio Monroy). His résumé also includes illustrations for book renowned publishers Alfaguara Infantil and Storytel, among others.

His work has been included in more than 25 individual exhibitions and 40 group exhibitions in Mexico, Spain, Argentina, Canada, France, Finland, Peru and China.

During his residency at Camino Al Arte, Rafael will produce 21 paintings in 12 days of uninterrupted creation, a concept he has called Kabbalah 21, focusing on his own evolution and expansion as an artist using mixed media, as well as the different actions that make it possible for an artist to find his compass, his path and inspiration when faced with the prospect of creating a new piece of art.