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Lorraine Garcia-Nakata is a woman who defies easy categorization, an icon in the Chicano art world whose art is filled with motifs of indigenous antiquity and urban modernity.

In the art realm, Garcia-Nakata is a painter, an illustrator, a sculptor, a welder and a musician. In her personal life she’s an activist, an arts administrator, a mentor, a mother.

But her greatest accomplishment has been to fuse all these attributes of herself into a cohesive life and career over the span of the past four decades, providing a sterling example of a contemporary Chicana artist.

In honor of her monumental career, Galeria de La Raza is hosting an exhibition called “Navigating by Hand: Lorraine Garcia-Nakata, a Retrospective 1964-2015,” which consists of Garcia-Nakata’s artwork in the aforementioned styles, juxtaposed with her personal archives, painting a complete chronicle of the artist and her muses, and her influence in molding the modern Chicano arts movement itself.

“It’s important to understand the Chicano arts movement from its inception and to also take time to honor folks who have been involved—like in Lorraine’s case—in the Galería familia for many, many decades and have never really had a space or time to show just her work and to honor her contributions,” said Galería de La Raza Executive Director Ani Rivera.

The genesis for this exhibit came about earlier this year when Rivera and Ella Diaz, Latina/o studies professor at Cornell University and co-curator of “Navigating by Hand,” were visiting Garcia-Nakata’s home studio.

Title: “In retrospect” by Lorraine García-Nakata. 1990, charcoal on paper

“Lorraine just brought everything out and we started going through boxes and boxes showing us a collection not just of sketchbooks and mockups and preliminary drawings, but her collection of 45s, vinyl records, LIFE magazines, photographs, and newspapers she’s kept as inspiration,” Diaz said.

While perusing the collections, both Rivera and Diaz realized the living history of Chicano art was well documented and present through the work of Garcia-Nakata. Moreover, aside from the actual works of art, the creative process was an imperative and omnipresent compartment of her art process.

“If we’re going to do a retrospective exhibit, it was essential to show the labor behind her catalogue and what an arts career actually looks like in totality,” Diaz said. “This [retrospective] will show how she and other artists got to a place, where they could make this type of work. This will speak to the life of the artist, not just the artwork.”

García-Nakata was born in 1950 and raised in Yuba City, California. She was a high school student when she came to San Francisco in the 1960s and was immersed in the charged political climate of the Civil Rights and feminist movements. Her exposure to the public struggle of social equity for marginalized populations and her Chicano heritage are underlying themes in García-Nakata’s catalogue.

“We have been, by omission, not necessarily included in the American Experience, its history and its voice,” she said. “We must claim our rightful place in American history. We are all American.”

Naturally, Garcia-Nakata was consulted in building the installations for the exhibition, and her intentions mirror those of the curators: to educate viewers of the works.

“The curators want to get at the intention of the work … [which is] really important because it’s not just the beauty or the technical skill or the scale or that first impression, but it’s to really understand the work in relation to the community, in relation to what the Galeria is in this time and [its] place in history,” Garcia-Nakata explained. “This art isn’t an artifact in a museum. It’s a living, breathing cultural being that gives a sense of place and history to those who encounter my work.”

Garcia-Nakata’s art falls within the style of the Chicano movement but for her the key detail is her objective, which is not just an expression of her feelings, but a vision of a more accepting world.

“[My work] is what the world could look like once the fighting is over on the other side,” she says. “You just have to find ‘descanso’ in art, the refuge where anger, slight, dismissal don’t take control of your person.”

Ultimately, it’s up to the viewer to witness how Garcia-Nakata’s roles in the art world and in life are interrelated and intertwined.

“She wants you to understand not just her work as an artist but she wants you to know who she is, as an arts worker, as an infrastructural player, as an activist, as a mother, a woman,” Diaz said.

“Navigating by Hand” will be on display until Oct. 25 at Galería de la Raza, located at 2857 24th Street.