Four-Dimensional Artist
Puerto Rican-born artist Sandra Antongiorgi creates art for all the senses. She is a singer and song writer, a painter and muralist. She tells deeply revealing human stories of domestic violence, social justice and of all the parts of people that make them beautiful. Those stories come alive through her paint brush and her guitar. While the power of Sandra’s work is capturing attention across the country, it is here in Chicago that it is gaining recognition for the impact it makes across cultures. Last year she and collaborator Sam Kirk, another Chicago artist, created a work the Chicago Reader named the Best Mural of 2017.
Titled Weaving Cultures, the focus of the mural is a transgender Latina, along with underrepresented women of diverse cultures. Viewers come away with a sense of bridging neighborhoods. In some of her studio work, Sandra says she “likes to look at how we treat black and brown boys and girls — and the lack of resources we give them.”
A recent exhibition of Sandra’s work at the Los Angeles LGBT Center, titled Turning a Blind Eye, included a series called The Caged Rooster. For this series of portraits Sandra’s subject of portraiture was Rooster, a formerly incarcerated man who was objectified for being in a gang, seeing him as nothing more than a street nickname. Rooster’s whitewashed face attests to this nation’s justification of mass incarceration through dehumanization.
CELEBRATE LATINX HERITAGE MONTH
An exhibit of Sandra’s work will kick off Latinx Heritage Month, starting September 7 through mid-October at Center on Halsted. Adding to the opening night festivities will be a performance by AfriCaribe.
