Evan Apodaca: Insurgent Smokescreen

September 7, 2024 – January 12, 2025

Since 2017, Evan Apodaca’s work has sought to deconstruct U.S. imperialism and the militarization of Southern California. In Insurgent Smokescreen, Apodaca assumes the role of historian by depicting first-hand accounts of Vietnam War era antiwar activists from Southern California. From Ocean Beach to Del Mar and Oceanside, CA, moments of state-sanctioned repression against antiwar dissent are recounted and re-enacted through multi-modal approaches to documentary. Performed and filmed at their sites of original occurrence, we visit a beachfront railroad crossing, an outdoor amphitheater, a busy intersection, and an activist house turned-AirBnb rental. Correspondingly, Apodaca’s chalk pastel drawings attempt to fill the void in our collective memory of encountered struggles and hard-won victories in times of immense global conflict.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Evan Apodaca is a third-generation Chicano artist based in Southern California with a Bachelor’s of Fine Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Apodaca’s work has shown at the El Paso Museum of Art (2024); Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juarez (2024); Athenaeum Art Center (2024); the San Diego International Airport (2023); the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (2022); Best Practice Gallery (2020); The New Americans Museum (2017); the Chicano International Film Festival (2017); the Tijuana Film Festival (2017) the PBS Online Film Festival (2016); and the San Diego Latino Film Festival (2016). Apodaca was a recipient of San Diego Commission for Art and Culture’s Far South Border North grant and a Reclaiming Border Narrative Fellow at the Center For Cultural Power in 2023; in 2021 he was a recipient of the National Association of Latino Arts & Culture’s Border Narrative Change Grant; and in 2019 he was a San Diego Foundation Creative Catalyst fellow.

SUPPORT

GCAC thanks Chemers Gallery in Tustin, CA, for their generous in-kind support towards framing the artist’s work.