About Us
El Comalito Collective is an art space that showcases underrepresented artists through a variety of media that spark consciousness. We create networks that build support and foster opportunities for marginalized voices through artworks that explore the intersections of (but not limited to) race, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, and gender, through a decolonial lens. This is a space for and by community.
El Comalito Collective es un espacio de arte que presenta artistas que históricamente no han sido representados a través de una variedad de medios que despiertan la conciencia. Creamos redes que generen apoyo y fomenten oportunidades para las voces marginadas a través de trabajos que exploren las intersecciones (pero no exclusivas) de la raza, el estado socioeconómico, la orientación sexual y el género a través de una lente des-colonial. Este es un espacio para y por comunidad.
Who We Are |
El Comalito Collective was born out of the necessity to create a platform for underprivileged artists to be able to connect and build a network of support. El Comal (the griddle) serves as the metaphor for the platform for which the space was created as el comal is the platform that serves as one of the catalysts for heating up tortillas and bringing family together. In the past el comal was centrally located and its heat weaved the family together, much like present day kitchens do. Tortillas are made from corn which is indigenous to our land and churned, ground, and transformed into maza for tortillas which then get heated on a platform, the comal, to act as sustenance and food. El Comalito Collective hopes to serve as the platform that will create sustenance for the Vallejo community through art.
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Our History
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Established in 2015.
Abel and Edgar-Arturo who are coupled and have experiences navigating the art world both as individual gay brown men as well as a gay couple of color decided to open up the space to honor underrepresented voices and together build opportunities for communities to network and create support. El Comalito Collective was born from the belief that art should be both for and by community. |
MEET THE TEAM
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ABEL RODRIGUEZ (He)
Abel Rodriguez is a Queer Xicano artist who was born in Fairfield, CA in 1979. He received a MFA degree in Painting from Yale School of Art in 2010, and a BFA in Drawing and Painting and Graphic Design from California State University, Long Beach in 2007. He was selected to participate in the Artist in Residence Program at Recology, S.F. in 2011. He has exhibited nationwide and currently works and resides in Vallejo, CA. Photo Credit: Reggie Ballesteros Photography |
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EDGAR-ARTURO CAMACHO-GONZALEZ (They/He)
Edgar-Arturo Camacho-González is a Queer Indigenous Xicanx community activist, artist, and poet living on occupied Ohlone land in Vallejo, CA. They are committed to making the communities they are part of safe, vibrant, and welcoming for all by creating work that celebrates who they are without compromising their identity. Their work is a celebratory ode of representation to queer people and people of color. Edgar-Arturo’s work has been published in several anthologies, and they have exhibited throughout the West Coast and is currently the artist-in-residence with the ACLU, NorCal. Edgar-Arturo is a co-founder of El Comalito Collective Cultural Arts Center in Vallejo, CA, and was awarded the “Artists and Cultural Practitioners Grant, 2020” from the California Arts Council. Photo Credit: Reggie Ballesteros Photography |