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UA Graduate Student Paints “The Immigrant Life”

UA graduate student in painting and professor of biology Juan López-Bautista has paintings on display now through August 10 at Ayers LRC Art Gallery in Anniston, Ala. The exhibition, titled “The Immigrant Life,” expresses López-Bautista’s ideas of the migratory life through abstract, fluid, moving shapes that allude to the most internal processes of life.

"Crossing," Juan López-Bautista, The Immigrant Life, June 11-August 10, 2018, Ayers LRC Art Gallery, Anniston "Adrift," Juan López-Bautista, The Immigrant Life, June 11-August 10, 2018, Ayers LRC Art Gallery, Anniston "Passage," Juan López-Bautista, The Immigrant Life, June 11-August 10, 2018, Ayers LRC Art Gallery, Anniston

In his artist statement, he writes, “Through washes, layers, and biomorphic shapes I intend to explore the development of consciousness as a result of a cultural assimilation by migration. My work is an invitation to the viewer to perceive this migratory effort. In my practice, each work is not a final product but a continuation of the previous one and itself the preceding stage for the consequent work. I envision my paintings as an evolutionary continuum, where issues of race, tolerance, immigration, separation, pursue of happiness, and survival occupies the same pictorial space.”

López-Bautista has a Ph.D. in plant biology from Louisiana State University and has taught for fifteen years in UA’s Department of Biology. Before entering the MFA program in studio art at UA, he took courses in painting at LSU and at The University of Alabama. The Ayers LRC Art Gallery is located on 1801 Coleman Road, at Gadsden State Community College – Ayers campus, in Anniston and is open Mon. through Thurs., 8:00 am to 7 p.m.

"Hegira," Juan López-Bautista, The Immigrant Life, June 11-August 10, 2018, Ayers LRC Art Gallery, Anniston "Migrant," Juan López-Bautista, The Immigrant Life, June 11-August 10, 2018, Ayers LRC Art Gallery, Anniston "Transit," Juan López-Bautista, The Immigrant Life, June 11-August 10, 2018, Ayers LRC Art Gallery, Anniston

For more information about the UA Department of Art and Art History and its programs, visit this link: https://art.ua.edu/academics/ or contact the department at (205) 348-5967.