Beyond the Press

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Beyond The Press is SHG’s new iteration of its artist in residence program, formerly known as AIR. Beyond the Press invites one interdisciplinary artist to create a new body of work over the course of a year. The work created during the residency culminates with an exhibition in SHG’s 1,200 square foot exhibition space. Artists are selected through a nomination process and by invitation only. Once an artist is nominated, they are contacted and invited to complete an online application and submit work samples.

The residency offers artists the following benefits: 

• A studio space in a collaborative and nurturing environment focused on promoting equity and access among artists of color.

• An opportunity to collaborate on projects with the broader Boyle Heights community through workshops or discussions that may inform the artist’s practice. 

• Production of a serigraph edition in our Professional Printmaking studio (if interested). 

• Access to our Open Printmaking Studio, a printmaking studio with relief, intaglio and letterpress equipment.

• Opportunity to develop their teaching practice through workshops.

• Introduction to a network of artists through SHG’s Artist Roundtable.  

• Exhibition in the SHG’s gallery at the end of the residency.

Since its inception, Self Help Graphics & Art has fostered an artist-in-residence program that has nurtured legacy building artists such as Linda Vallejo, Leo Limón, Michael Amescua, Yreina Cervantez, Jaime “Vyal” Reyes, Pavel Acevedo and beyond. Since moving to our current building in Boyle Heights, SHG has provided residencies and small business incubation spaces for artists such as Sticky Rick’s, Dewey Tafoya and Wayne Perry. The Beyond the Press artist in residence program is supported in part by the Andy Warhol Foundation and generous anonymous private donors.

2024 BEYOND THE PRESS ARTIST, ZOE BLAQ

Self Help Graphics & Art is excited to welcome Rashonda Bartney, who goes by the artist name Zoe Blaq, as its 2024 Beyond the Press artist in residence. Zoe is an interdisciplinary artist, mental health advocate, published poet, and urban gardener from Los Angeles. She uses mixed media, installations, eco-art, storytelling, performance, video, photography, and zines for art activism and to empower marginalized communities. 

As the founder of Urban Soul Farmer, she engages and educates the broader community on topics of food justice, indigenous agriculture, and healing arts. She develops urban garden and art programs for ex-offenders, disabled adults, and LA county schools. 

Inspired by George Washington Carver, she is nurturing the soil, connecting with locals, and creating sustainable food hubs in South L.A.  Zoe is also experimenting with microclimates and a seed ball project in the majestic Mojave desert. She holds an M.A. in Clinical Psychology from Antioch University Los Angeles and a B.A. in Cinema and Television Arts from Cal State University Northridge.

Beyond the Press allows artists to delve deeper into their multidisciplinary art practice while engaging with the broader SHG communities.  Zoe will engage with SHG's Youth Committee, participate in SOY Artista this summer, and participate in SHG’s Sinks: Places We Call Home exhibition for the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time ArtXScience 2024 initiative.

Our 2024 Beyond the Press residency is made possible with support from the Mike Kelley Foundation For The Arts. Learn more here.

2022 BEYOND THE PRESS ARTISTS, KALLI ARTE COLLECTIVE

Self Help Graphics & Art welcomed Kalli Arte Collective to its Beyond the Press artists in residence program in 2022. Kalli Arte is formed by self-taught artists Adriana Carranza and Alfonso Aceves from Boyle Heights. This is a mutual opportunity for Kalli Arte to inspire and be inspired by the creative community that encompasses this organization.

“​​Together, we hope to bring something special to our beloved community of Boyle Heights. It means so much to us to be able to represent everything that encompasses our existence here. We are the artists of our environment and say this with so much pride, dignity, and respect from a place we were raised in,” said Kalli Collective. “We want to acknowledge all our friends and family who have believed in us and guided us along the way. We love you and hope to make our community proud!”

As a family and as individual artists, their work is influenced by their ancestral and contemporary traditions, culture, environment, and social justice ideals. Calli or Kalli (home in Nahuatl) guides the collective's printmaking practice. Their style is unequivocal. Their bold colors and lines transform quotidian objects in the Latinx community, tchotchkes, mesoamerican ancestors, and the neighborhood faces underscore the pride in their work, medium, and roots. 

As part of their residency in 2022, Kalli Arte worked with the community through monthly Open Studio days, leading select workshops, and their Sueños Real culminating residency exhibition. During SHG’s 49th Annual Día de los Muertos season, Kalli Arte will debut their Commemorative Print and serve as Curators of Canciones de ti, our Día de los Muertos exhibition!

The Canciones de ti exhibition debuted fall of 2022 for the Día de los Muertos season.

2020-2021 BEYOND THE PRESS ARTIST, PAVEL ACEVEDO

As the inaugural resident artist for SHG's Beyond the Press, Pavel Acevedo (pictured) began his residency in early 2020, which came to a sudden halt due to the pandemic in March of that year. However, this pause did not conclude his residency or deter his creativity or engagement with the Boyle Heights community.

During his residency that resumed in 2021, Pavel explored the theme of migration, looking at how both humans and animals adapt and adopt new environments as a result of external stresses. Learn more about Pavel’s culminating residency exhibition, The Shell in the Clouds (El Caparazón en las Nubes), here.

Pavel Acevedo was born in Oaxaca, Mexico, and resides in Riverside, CA. Through printmaking and muralism, he explores the topics of migration, immigration, borders and the duality many immigrants contend with after leaving their homeland for a new nation. He studied at the Rufino Tamayo Plastic Arts Workshop in Oaxaca City and La Escuela de Bellas Artes of Oaxaca with the renowned master printer, Shinzaburo Takeda. Acevedo has exhibited throughout Mexico and the United States.

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