FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Presented by Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields with curator Elvira Carrizal, playwright and Columbia University filmmaker, Borderlands, an unprecedented art exhibit, will open to the public at the President’s office in Manhattan, NYC, on October 4, 2004.

“The exhibit represents the spiritual and physical worlds that I find myself caught in-between,” said curator Elvira Carrizal. “We're bringing our interpretation of the Chicano and Latino experience to the American public. I want all Americans to know that we will no longer be overlooked.”

Borderlands will remain on exhibit through November 29, 2004 in recognition of Chicano and Latino Heritage. "I strongly support this exhibit because everyday I see how people of Latino background, through hard work, intelligence and ingenuity have made leaps and bounds into the social, political, entertainment and economic life of this country," said Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields.

Borderlands is a collection of paintings, and some sculptures and illustrations featuring approximately 60 works by 25 artists, including Lalo Alcaraz, James de la Vega, Ademola Olugebefola, COPIE, Eileen

Marquez, Juan Doe, Ronnie Dukes, Anibal Padrino, Elson de Faria, Peter Calvin, Alex Talavera, Alberto Velasco, Mike Rimbaud, Franck de Las Mercedes, Cristina Alvarez, Brenda Xavez, Ray Rosario, Lianne Alcón, Tania Bravo, and Lindsay Manolakos.

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about the artist: Juan Doe an artist that strains the boundary between painting, propaganda, polemics, and philosophical discourse in art. He encapsulated a new age aesthetic through his command of the graphic process but with the masterful execution of a painter. His images are non-negotiable, they cannot be interpreted or postponed; they exist now, for the oxygen of the viewers eyes.

about the artist: Anibal Padrino Born in the Bronx, New York, in the early 1970s, Currently lives and works in Long Island City, at the now famous Crane Studios. After completing a half semester of academic art education at the School of Visual Arts he was voted “Most Valuable Painter,” May 10, 1991. He graduated with honorary masters degree in ironic bachelor of fine arts and entertainment, 1999.

about the curator: Elvira Carrizal, a Chicana born in El Paso, Texas, was raised in the border town of Chaparral, New Mexico. She received her bachelor's degree from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities in May 2000, where she double-majored in broadcast journalism and Chicano studies and completed a minor in theatre arts. Father's Shadow/Sombra del Padre is the first-place winner of the Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival Si TV Playwriting Award and the second-place runner-up of the National Student Playwriting Award. Carrizal received a fellowship from the Kennedy Center to attend the Eugene O'Neill National Playwriting Conference in New London, Connecticut, in the summer of 2000. Among other awards, Carrizal received an Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for her work on a collaborative documentary production.