1060 S. Oakforest Lane Pasadena, CA 91107Phone: (626) 584-1699Fax: (626) 584-1699E-mail: jaalarte@earthlink.net Artist Statement: As a visual artist, I am dedicated to nurturing the development and production of an ongoing body of art that utilizes a variety of traditional mediums, materials, and techniques in combination with an experimental approach to contemporary technology and social issues. I seek to explore the application of space within an installation, painting, print or public environment that invites the interaction of the viewer with the elements of the composition; the spectator is to be engaged as an active participant and not a passive observer.
The nature of my art is dependent upon the exploration and exportation of images, icons, symbols, and signs that have been contained within the continuity of creative expression from 3000 years ago until today.
Reflecting upon my place of origin and its impact on the recent history of my experience in the United States, I probe the aesthetics of an artist that exists in two cultures bound by bi-national implications. I create a visual imagery that provokes definitions and questions that attempt to define the tentative integrated everyday experience of human nature and its social implications within the cultural diversity of living between the borders of two worlds that exist as a product of globalization.
Artist Resume: José Antonio Aguirre (born in Mexico City, 1955) a bi-national artist, United States and Mexico, has
studied and lived outside of México since 1976. He obtained a visual arts degree, Bachelor of Fine Arts
from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1982, and a Master of Fine Arts at California Institute of
the Arts in 1990. He has lived in California since 1986.
Aguirre has executed and fabricated over 30 permanent works of public art for public and private projects
in the State of California, Chicago, Illinois and Mexico City. Aguirre works are included in permanent collections in various institutions and museums in Germany, Mexico, Scotland and the United States. His most ambitious glass mosaic mural (2,200 sq. ft.), Our Legacy: Forever Presente…; was completed in 2004 for the East Los Angeles Public Library. During the past five years, Mr. Aguirre has produced
Public Art Projects for private developers in Los Angeles, various educational mural projects in Los
Angeles metropolitan area and Mexico City. He just completed the installation of a glass mosaic
fountain and a mural for Village Walk in Tarzana, California.
His current commissions: MTA-Goldline Foothill Extension for the Azusa-Alamenda Station, Valley Boulevard Grade Separation (City of Los Angeles), Lancaster Animal Shelter (Los Angeles County Arts Commission), and two educational mosaic murals, one for the School of Art for Universidad de
Guadalajara, Jalisco; and the other for Museo Modelo de Ciencia e Industria (MUMCI) in Toluca, México.
Mr. Aguirre has been selected for the US Fulbright Scholar Program to implement a Public Art project at
Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Azcapotzalco in Mexico City. Links:
