Exhibit Title: "The Second Coming of Con Safos, C/S" Date: Jan. 8 to Feb. 12 Where: C.N. Gorman Museum 1316 Hart Hall University of California, Davis Hours: Noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and by appointment Reception: 5-8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 8 Artist: Louie "The Foot" Gonzalez The C.N. Gorman Museum will begin the new year with "The Second Coming of Con Safos, C/S," a solo exhibition of works by Louie "The Foot" Gonzalez. A Sacramento artist and longtime member of the Chicano art community, Gonzalez traces his involvement in the visual arts through his participation with the Royal Chicano Air Force and a collective of silkscreen artists, as well as through his poetry. "I owe my introduction to the world of visual art to poetry, for poetry was a vehicle to express my dreams and hopes. In the early '70s, the Chicano movement held many of us in its embrace and in so doing gave birth to a growing spirit of self-determination, a need to control a small part of our own lives," he said. For those involved with the Chicano art community, "The Second Coming of Con Safos" holds a welcome and special meaning. As Gonzalez explains in one of his poems, "Con Safos is history from a Chicano point of view; it's pride in our indigenous roots mixed with despair at the genocide from Spain. . . Con Safos is the first encounter with Manifest Destiny, the theft of Aztlan, the remembrance of Murrieta and Vasquez, freedom fighters for La Raza." Gonzalez will be exhibiting squeegee paintings on paper, created using a silk-screen process in which he applies the ink directly on the paper and moves the ink with a squeegee. "I felt a need for an immediate, spontaneous form of expression," he said. "The screen itself has been eliminated. All that remains are the basic elements: paper, ink, squeegee, idea and artist." -more- Please Recycle 2-2-2 Gorman Museum The work itself is symbolic of Gonzalez's personal growth as an artist and poet within the Chicano art community and draws on the rooted history of silk screen as a medium for political art of the 1970s. The work is a blend, or what Gonzalez calls "Mestizo." According to Gonzalez, the colors, patterns and movements in the paintings are the products of the Mestizo experience, the combining of two separate worlds: the rigid screen print and the unrestricted abstract. "As a Chicano artist, I am right at home with this idea," he said. Born in Mexico City, Gonzalez has spent the majority of his life in Sacramento, where he attended California State University, Sacramento. He is known both as an artist and poet. His participation in the Royal Chicano Air Force has earned him recognition and exhibitions across the country, including the traveling exhibit "CARA: Chicano Art, Resistance and Affirmation" and "Poster Exhibit of the Royal Chicano Air Force" at the University Art Institute in Paris, France.