Michele Ramirez

Statement and Resume
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Paintings: Central Valley
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Paintings: Merced County
Gouaches: Keever Vineyards series
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Prints: Oakland
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Statement and Resume
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Clase Obrera
Painting is a joy. It is also work and I work everyday. My ethic is inspired by the rural farming community to which I was born--a place where the discipline in which one labors is not as important as the discipline with which one labors. My grandparents both grew and harvested the crops of California’s Central Valley. I am the unexpected artist. My family encouraged me, nurtured my dream, and helped me to live a life contrary to the expectations of others in my favorite dusty little town, and elsewhere.
 
I grew up surrounded by natural color fields. Crop rotations regularly presented different forms and textures, and each season brought new colors in blocks and rows. These geometric structures and planes that formed the wide-open landscape of my youth have always captivated me. So too have the people that inhabit this panorama.
 
I have great reverence for the human form. I respect all of its manifestations--young, old, agitated, at peace. The simplest gestures often convey a person's natural dignity. These gestures bear the weight of my compositions. Color ties them to emotion. In my paintings, elements of abstraction and formal structure are incorporated to lend ambiguity to the implied narrative of each piece. I leave the story to the viewer.

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  • SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
  • San Francisco Women Artists Gallery "9 Mujures" San Francisco, CA 2008
  • First Street Gallery "California Landscape Show" Turlock, CA 2008
    San Leandro Museum and Art Gallery "Bypasses and Intersections; Scenes from the Other California" San Leandro, CA 2008
  • Kings Art Center "Views From Within A Culture" Hanford, CA 2008
  • The Greenlining Gallery "move" Berkeley, CA 2008
  • First Street Gallery "Sixth Annual Miniture Group Show" Turlock, CA, 2007
  • Rowan Morrison Gallery "RoMoLoCo Group Show" Oakland, CA, 2007
  • Gallery of Urban Art "Un Lugar Solitario" Oakland CA, 2007
  • Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts "Nueve Mujeres" San Francisco, 2007
  • Galeria Tonantzin "Las Mujeres", San Juan Bautista, 2007 
  • de Young Museum "Chicano Encounters: Local Places and Global Communities" San Francisco, 2006 
  • Rowan Morrison "Paintings from Exile" Oakland, 2006 
  • ArtSFest "Bay Area Celebration of the Arts" San Francisco, 2006
  • Womens Cancer Resource Center "!Salud!" Oakland, 2006 
  • Venge Vineyards "Harvest" Saint Helena, California, 2005 - present
  • Corazon Del Pueblo Gallery "Ojos Indigenas" Oakland, 2004
  • Ardency Gallery "Re:Figuration" Oakland, 2002
  • Carnegie Center for the Arts "Obra Grafica" Turlock, California,2001
  • Merced Cultural Arts Center "Rising/Converging" Merced, California, 2001 
  • The Abstrakt Zone "MMMM" Emeryville, California, 1999 
  • Greensboro Cultural Arts Center "Yo Soy Americana" Greensboro, North Carolina, 1996

AWARDS

  • 2007  George Sugarman Foundation Grant

RESIDENCIES

  • 2008  Stonehouse Residency for the Contemporary Arts

PERMANENT COLLECTIONS

  • Kaiser Permanente, Corporate Headquarters, Oakland
  • County of Alameda, County Court House, Oakland 
  • County of Alameda, Transportation Authority Building, Oakland 
  • Public Policy Institute of California, San Francisco and Sacramento
  • EnviroTrans Solutions, Corporate Headquarters, Oakland
  • Keever Vineyards,  Yountville, CA
  • Stonehouse Residency for the Contemporary Arts, Miramonte, CA

  • PUBLICATIONS
    The Business Journal of Hispanic Research. Indiana
  • Somos Medicina: Mujeres de Maiz anthology of art and poetry. Los Angeles
  • Other Investigations literary magazine. Boston
  • Wines and Vines trade magazine. San Rafael 
  • Mungo Vs. Ranger biannual journal of poetry and prose. San Francisco
  • Penumbra literary magazine. Turlock 

  • Kaiser Permanente, Corporate Headquarters, Oakland
  • County of Alameda, County Court House, Oakland 
  • County of Alameda, Transportation Authority Building, Oakland 
  • Public Policy Institute of California, San Francisco and Sacramento
  • EnviroTrans Solutions, Corporate Headquarters, Oakland
  • Keever Vineyards,  Yountville, CA
  • Stonehouse Residency for the Contemporary Arts, Miramonte, CA

  • PUBLICATIONS
    The Business Journal of Hispanic Research. Indiana
  • Somos Medicina: Mujeres de Maiz anthology of art and poetry. Los Angeles
  • Other Investigations literary magazine. Boston
  • Wines and Vines trade magazine. San Rafael 
  • Mungo Vs. Ranger biannual journal of poetry and prose. San Francisco
  • Penumbra literary magazine. Turlock 

EDUCATION

  • MFA University of North Carolina at Greensboro
  • Certificate of Printmaking California State University Stanislaus
  • BA California State University of Stanislaus
  • MFA University of North Carolina at Greensboro
  • Certificate of Printmaking California State University Stanislaus
  • BA California State University of Stanislaus
  • PRESS
    The Hanford Sentinel, March 2008
     
    The East Bay Express, April 2007
     
    Your Bridge to the East Bay, April - May, 2007

     
    The East Bay Monthly, June 2006

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    9852 Lawlor Street, Oakland, CA 94605 (510) 735-1791