Marine Park: Artist Conversation with Raul Rodriguez and Jessica Fuentes

Marine Park: Artist Conversation with Raul Rodriguez and Jessica Fuentes About this event

Exhibition Description

Marine Park is a photographic series centering around a Fort Worth skatepark that local skateboarders have found both community and solace in. The photographs share the faces and details that can be found in an otherwise desolate and makeshift course that many lower income and communities of color may experience. Today, the continuing integration and accessibility of skateboarding has changed ideas of who a skateboarder can be.

“Over the last two years I have returned to this place to document, take part and capture the beauty found at Marine Park, the idiosyncrasies of skateboarding culture and the visual language it speaks through a group of people that have embraced its lifestyle.” - Raul Rodriguez, 2021

Raul Rodriguez Bio

Raul Rodriguez is a photographer, artist, curator and educator from Fort Worth, Texas. He graduated with a BFA from the University of North Texas College of Visual Arts and Design with a focus in Photography. As an artist he investigates communities and cultures like skateboarding, boxing, and Lucha Libre, as well as social justice topics linked to the Latino identity. His projects reveal the layers and complexities of his personal and cultural experience as a first generation Mexican-American. His work has been exhibited in galleries and spaces including the Fort Worth Community Arts Center, Fort Works Art, The Oak Cliff Cultural Art Center, Southern Methodist University and the Latinx Project at New York University. He has worked with museums and organizations like Make Art with Purpose, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. In 2020, Raul received the Nasher Sculpture Center Artist Grant for his photographic community platform, Deep Red Press focusing on underrepresented artists in Texas.

Jessica Fuentes Bio

Jessica Fuentes is an artist, educator, and community advocate. She holds a BA in Art and Performance from UT Dallas (2004) and an MA in Art Education from the University of North Texas (2013). She has worked in art education for nearly 15 years teaching learners of all ages in classrooms, museums, and higher education. She was instrumental in creating the C3 Visiting Artist Project (Dallas Museum of Art) and the Carter Community Artists initiative (Amon Carter Museum of American Art). She serves on the board of the Dallas-based arts organization Make Art with Purpose (MAP), on the Education Planning Committee at the Smithsonian Latino Center in Washington, D.C., and as the Western Region Representative for the Museum Division of the National Art Education Association.

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