CURATORIAL STATEMENT
Mt. San Jacinto College’s Fine Arts Gallery is proud to present an exhibition of Harry Fonseca’s "Stone Poems."
Harry Fonseca is one of America’s most well-known Native American artists. His work has been shown throughout the United States and abroad.
A Maidu-Niesenan, Harry was born in Sacramento. He was educated at California State University, Sacramento. Fonseca has exhibited his work all over the country at such venus as: the Smithsonian Institution, Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, American Indian Community House Gallery, NYC, Cline LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento and others.
The inspiration for the “Stone Poems” comes from pictographs the artist finds amidst the rocky ledges of California and the Southwest. Fonseca sketches at these sites and then creates larger than life modernized versions of what he sees. He calls his pieces “rock art."
His art is a synthesis, of symbol and history, a sort of organic revisionism. Fonseca recreates from these primitive signs, bringing them up to date, thus making them more accessible in a new, refreshing context.
--Lucinda Luvaas Director, Mt. San Jacinto College’s Fine Art Gallery
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