Take Me With You (Green No. 2)
2020
digital print
Artist Statement
‘TAKE ME WITH YOU’ (2020) is my return to the seduction of lowrider aesthetics and the poetics of (re)claimed bodies. The classic American car – still a symbol of social status, masculinity, and a bygone era – undergoes radical aesthetic and functional transformations by Latinx and other youth and families of color into mobile symbols of cultural identity and personal pride. Focusing on the hyper-aestheticized modifications of the car’s engine (which must still be fully functional, according to lowrider competition rules), ‘Take me with you’ reveals the loving care given to the vehicle – inside and out – evoking an intimacy shared between the car body, its owner, and lowrider club members bound by camaraderie and a common love for the culture.
Bio and Website
Christopher Ferreria is a San Diego-based artist and educator who works in photography, installation, collaborative public interventions, and design. The formal and conceptual arc of his art practice is rooted in understanding the tensions between the public and private dimensions of identity formation, performance, and perception in society — exploring how individual and community identities sublimate themselves through material, spatial, interpersonal, and symbolic engagement and representation.
Ferreria’s individual and collaborative works have been shown in South Korea, Mexico, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary, and Australia, including the Busan International Photo Fair, inSite_05: Art Practices in the Public Domain, MPact Global Action for Gay Men’s Health & Rights/International AIDS Conference, Schwules Museum, Instituto Cultural de Baja California, Honolulu Museum of Art, Asian Arts Initiative, Deep River, Oceanside Museum of Art, Highways Performance Space and Gallery, and the Huntington Beach Art Center.
His photographic and design work have been featured in 'The Advocate' and published in 'Corpus' for AIDS Project Los Angeles, 'Oafanthology 2' and 'WANC: Hell on Ice' in collaboration with artist Ed Luce. (Goteblüd Press), and 'Fur: The Love of Hair' (Bruno Gmünder). Ferreria has also photographed and designed book projects for Filipinx American writer Ella de Castro Baron and scholar Theodore Gonzalves.
During his tenure as Visual Arts Director for VozAlta Project from 2004 to 2005, he co-organized and curated several exhibitions including solo shows for Ruben Ochoa, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Aya Seko, and Patrick ‘Pato’ Hebert, as well as a group exhibition on contemporary drawing practices called 'Pencil on Glass' in partnership with Sushi Performance Space.
Ferreria received his MFA in Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego, and a BA in Studio Art from the University of California, Irvine. He currently teaches at MiraCosta College, San Diego Mesa College, and Southwestern College.
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