The Insider/Outsider exhibition is an art experience reflecting how the desire to assimilate manifests itself through the art-making process. All of the artists in the exhibition are first or second-generation immigrants and use adroit creative processes to understand themselves in relation to their new culture.

Juan Carlos Quintana has created a series of acrylic works on paper that he describes as a form of “ambivalent nostalgia." These exquisite works evoke a dark cloud hovering over the memories of childhood.


Diana Guerrero’s father died of pesticide poisoning as a nursery worker. Her mixed-media installation: What Niven's Left Behind creates a distance between the viewer and a healthy nursery plant—as it references a memorial tableaux. The work hints at a sense of danger, and sadness.


Photography is used by several artists in the exhibition to document other peoples’ domestic interiors as a way of understanding themselves in relation to other’s lives. These artists understand that the intimacy of one’s personal environment is very telling, fostering an insight into the individual that lives there. Seza Bali's photographs reveal an awareness that what someone chooses to emphasize or ignore in their personal space is quite significant.


Ari Salomon photographed his grandmother’s apartment in Paris in which she lived over a period of 30 years. Poignant moments are discovered as you become aware of her process of organizing items in her personal space. Both of these artists explore interior space as a manifestation of other, and while the works point to cultural difference, they also point to a sameness between us as well.

These artists, as well as others in the exhibition, show us the complexity of the concept of the insider and outsider position, and how these perspectives shift back and forth, fluidly.

-laurie halsey brown

(*Images, from top to bottom: Juan Carlos Quintana, Insider/Outsider, July 9 - July 29, 2008; Root Division, Morals and Dogmas of a Wayward Revolutionary, 2007, acrylic on paper, 15” x 11”, Image courtesy of Root Division. Juan Carlos Quintana, Insider/Outsider, July 9 - July 29, 2008; Root Division, Crisis Mode, 2007, acrylic on paper, 15” x 11”, image courtesy of Root Division. Juan Carlos Quintana, Insider/Outsider, July 9 - July 29, 2008; Root Division, Loss of Credibility, 2007, acrylic on paper, 15” x 11”, image courtesy of Root Division. Diana Guerrero, Insider/Outsider, July 9 - July 29, 2008; Root Division, What Niven's Left Behind, 2008, mixed media installation, 8' x 12' x 16', image courtesy of laurie halsey brown. Seza Bali, Insider/Outsider, July 9 - July 29, 2008; Root Division, Conny, Ashley and Gwen’s Knives, 2008, archival digital inkjet print, 22" x 27", image courtesy of Root Division. Ari Salomon, Insider/Outsider, July 9 - July 29, 2008; Root Division, Bathroom, June 2003, archival digital print, 52" x 21", image courtesy of Root Division.)