Rooted in Our Latinx Heritage
September 15
through
October 13
Decatur Arts Alliance Gallery
Decatur Visitors Center
113 Clairemont Ave.
Decatur, GA 30030
On view daily
10 am to 4 pm
Placita Latina is partnering with the Decatur Arts Alliance to showcase Latinx artists during Hispanic Heritage Month for the 3rd year. “Rooted in Our Latinx Heritage” highlights the work of seven Latinx visual artists from different backgrounds and experiences. Through their diverse works these artists present a wide variety of styles and voices. Each brings their unique Latinx experience into their work, and holds an important place in our American story.
Closing Artists Reception • Oct. 13 • 6:30-9:30 p.m.
Placita Latina closes its month-long gallery showing with the artists’ reception on October 13. The reception will be held mostly outside with opportunities to go inside the gallery to view the artwork. Hear artists share inspirational stories. Join us for art, Latinx refreshments and entertainment!
The Artists
Maite Nazario
(they/them/elle)
Maite Nazario is a queer, non-binary, Guatemalan and Puerto Rican multidisciplinary artist with a focus on activism. They create art to honor their community so that their art can serve as a testament of love. Nazario’s work highlights the lives of resilient people who shine despite a world that tries to take their light. Nazario’s hope is that their art creates empathy in people’s hearts and opens them up to listen to the valuable lived experiences of others.
maitenazario.com
IG: @maitexnazario
maitexnazario@gmail.com
Karenlie Riddering
(she/her/ella)
Karenlie Riddering was born and raised in Puerto Rico, and her interest in photography began at a young age. Now a multi-disciplinary artist, Riddering published her first book, Puerto Rico Encanto Oculto, in 2005, a collection of her photographs that also became a best-seller.
Riddering holds a BA in Fine Arts and a MS in Information Design and Communication. She has published a total of eight books. In 2006 Riddering moved to Georgia to pursue graduate studies. In 2008, she founded Creative Kaleidoscope, a bilingual communications and creative services company, through which she produces documentaries, offers voice overs, copywriting, editing, and translating services.
Insider’s Guide to Puerto Rico, the company’s first feature-length travel documentary, now streams on Amazon Prime.
Riddering loves creating art, traveling, foraging for mushrooms, and tasting new foods. She is the mother of two incredible daughters who keep her days busy and full of laughter.
IG: @creativekphotos
karenlieriddering@gmail.com
Julián Díaz Gonzalez
(he/him/el)
Julián Díaz Gonzalez is an oil painter based in Gainesville, Georgia. A self-taught artist, Díaz incorporates cultural elements from his Mexican background into his work. His portraits highlight subjects from his Mexican heritage. Díaz’s medium of choice is oil and he strives is to show cultural diversity and modern styles to subvert stereotypes through fine art.
juliandiazart.com
IG: @juliandiazgonzalez juliandiaz028@gmail.com
Cristina Montesinos
exhibition curator
(she/her/ella)
Cristina Montesinos is a third generation Latin American artist living and working in Atlanta. Now a full-time painter and curator, she spent the first 25 years of her career as a graphic designer and creative director.
Born and raised in Costa Rica into a large, Ecuadorian family of artists, Montesinos has a rich foundation for her work and life as an international artist.
Her greatest inspiration comes from her deep passion for and connection to nature after spending most of her time outdoors as a child. Drawing on her daily mindful practices and embracing her gentle, quiet, observational nature, Montesinos’s paintings capture the mystery and healing power of the natural world. Some of her series also reflect her responses to the often difficult happenings in our world.
Montesinos is also currently exhibiting work in Nuestras Huellas in Marietta, and later this fall she will be also be exhibiting her work in Ibiza, Spain.
Chris Alvarez
(he/him/el)
Originally from Madrid, Spain, Chris Alvarez now calls Atlanta home. Receiving a BFA in Animation, Alvarez has been creating award-winning content for television for over a decade. Heavily influenced by cartoons, pop culture, and the human figure, his work is ever changing and evolving. Alvarez also loves painting murals with his wife, reading comics, and eating fries
alvarezanimates.com
IG: @pitoto.alvarez
thepitoto@gmail.com
Melvin Toledo
(he/him/el)
Melvin Toledo is a self-taught, Nicaraguan born artist based in Atlanta. His work ranges from still life to portraiture as well as landscape painting. Toledo is currently working in a series of portraits of immigrants living in the United States.
Through this work, he shares the stories of people of different ethnicities and backgrounds to celebrate and honor their life, their work and their culture. Toledo explores the complexities of immigrant experience in a country that claims to be made by and for immigrants while continually rejecting newly arriving immigrants.
Recent exhibitions include Something to Declare at the Marietta Cobb Museum of Art and the Quinlan Arts Center in Gainesville, GA; Bullets and Bandaids Volume 4 traveling exhibition; New York Latin American Triennial in NYC. In April 2022 he won the 2D People’s Choice Award at Artfields, Lake City, SC.
melvintoledo.com
IG: @melvintoledo
toledo.mel@gmail.com
(859) 462-4698
Patricio Marín
(he/him/el)
Patricio Marín is a Nicaraguan painter from Susucayan, Nueva Segovia. After high school, while searching for direction, he took the suggestion of his mother and priest and left Nicaragua to take a drawing and painting course at the School of Fine Arts in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. While there, Marín found himself at home immersed in color and pigments. In 2000, he returned to Nicaragua to dedicate his life to painting.
Since then, Marín has painted landscapes using lithographic ink in the “style of Bob Ross” and his technique has evolved to oil on canvas and aluminum panel in a hyper realistic style.
“Soy un copiador de la realidad, mi intención es tomar fragmentos de la belleza y guardarlos en un lienzo.”
“I replicate reality with my works, and my intention is to take fragments of the world’s natural beauty and record them on canvas.“
Marín has exhibited his work in Nicaragua, Honduras, England and The United States.