XICANA! San Diego
Margaret Garcia, Los Chiles Enojados (pomegranates) Relena, 2012, Oil on Wood Panel
ESMoA EXTENSION Experience 64:
XICANA! San Diego
At the California Center for the Arts Museum
Curated by Dulce Stein
June 21 – November 2, 2025
Presented by City Heights Community Development Corporation
The California Center for the Arts, Escondido is proud to partner with the Experimentally Structured Museum of Art (ESMoA) to present XICANA! San Diego, an expanded and reimagined version of the impactful exhibition originally developed by ESMoA at El Camino College in Torrance. Building on the strength of the Los Angeles-based show, this iteration brings together many of the original artists alongside new voices from San Diego County to foster a powerful cross-regional dialogue. Centered on the theme “Colors of the Border: Art, Identity, and Connection,” the exhibition explores the role of Chicana art in honoring collective narratives, celebrating cultural identity, and forging connections across communities.
Learn more about ESMoA and the ESMoA EXTENSION Experience 64: XICANA! San Diego at www.ESMoA.org and @esmoaorg. ESMoA is run by Artlab21 Foundation, a public nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization.
Louis Verdad: TONÁNTZIN
Photo: Philipp Scholz Rittermann
Louis Verdad: TONÁNTZIN
Curated by Dulce Stein
June 21 - November 2, 2025
Accompanying XICANA! San Diego, TONÁNTZIN is an installation comprised of a life-sized reinterpretation of the Mesoamerican goddess, created by Mexican-American fashion designer Louis Verdad and a team of artists, including renowned muralist Eloy Torrez. Combining art and fashion, the installation explores the dual nature of creation and destruction, drawing connections to La Virgen de Guadalupe as a symbol of identity and resilience.
Louis Verdad is a Los Angeles-based fashion designer known for his sculptural approach to fashion, dressing icons like Christina Aguilera, Halle Berry, Cate Blanchett, Cher, Lady Gaga, Paris Hilton, Eva Longoria, Madonna, and Oprah Winfrey. He is currently developing new works that draw on his Mexican heritage, incorporating historical and symbolic references to celebrate his culture.
Louis Verdad: TONÁNTZIN is sponsored by Mestiza Group.
Dave Eassa: Head Above the Clouds
Dave Eassa, A Boy, Not Subject To, 2024, Oil and spray paint on canvas, 64 x 48 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.
Dave Eassa: Head Above the Clouds
October 4, 2025 - March 1, 2026
Head Above the Clouds is an immersive exhibition that explores love, loss, and the radical act of dreaming. Through large-scale paintings, sculptures, and collaborative installations, Dave Eassa constructs a dreamscape shaped by memory, love, and imagination. Drawing from personal and familial archives, Eassa transforms the gallery into a space for reflection and connection, where life-sized portraits become monuments, clouds anchor the ground, and suspended sails carry the dreams of youth and community voices. At once intimate and communal, Head Above the Clouds invites us to reimagine what’s possible when we dream together.
Dave Eassa (b. 1991, Ellicott City, MD) is a visual artist, curator, and cultural organizer based in San Diego, CA. Working across painting, sculpture, and socially engaged practice, his work explores personal and collective memory, love, and the possibilities of community. He has exhibited nationally and internationally, with solo exhibitions at Cody Gallery (VA), The Shed Space (MD), and Sistered (ME), and group exhibitions at Marianne Boesky Gallery (NY), LVL3 (Chicago), and Signal (NY). Eassa’s work has been featured in New American Paintings, The Washington Post, and BmoreArt, and is held in collections including the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. A 2015 Open Society Institute Fellow, Eassa founded Free Space, a pioneering arts program in Maryland’s prison system. He has held senior roles at the Baltimore Museum of Art, where he led initiatives such as the BMA Lexington Market satellite and co-curated Histories Collide: Jackie Milad x Fred Wilson x Nekisha Durrett. A Salzburg Global Fellow and recipient of numerous public art and artist awards, Eassa continues to build projects that merge aesthetics with equity, and community with care.
Embracing the Mystery
Embracing the Mystery is a juried exhibition curated by students in the Professional Practices class at Palomar College. The exhibition delves into the unsettling and unknown aspects of life, exploring existential questions such as: What is the past? What is the future? What is consciousness? What are dreams? As Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us, “The present moment is the only moment available to us, and it is the door to all moments.” Life is a mystery; the only tangible reality is the ever-changing present.
The exhibition presents a collection of two-dimensional works — including photography, video, painting, and drawing — by forty-two artists. The artists explore both internal and external landscapes, reflecting on themes such as isolation, exploration, entrapment, love, and the human body. Works like Lina Al’s Self Love and Jim Eighmey’s Rio Frio Caves, Belize exemplify the diverse subject matter.
Everything in Its Place: Selections from the Permanent Collection
Photo: Philipp Scholz Rittermann
Everything in Its Place: Selections from the Permanent Collection
Curated by Rokhsane Hovaida
April 18 - August 17, 2025
Everything in Its Place draws from the Museum’s permanent collection to explore the shifting relationships between abstraction, the human form, and the environments we inhabit. Spanning works from the 1980s to the present, the exhibition highlights artists who experiment with form, material, and spatial composition to question what it means to belong, to remember, and to be seen.
Organized into three intersecting themes—The Body, The Place, and The Space—the exhibition examines how artists challenge boundaries between figuration and abstraction, and between internal and external worlds. These themes serve as frameworks through which viewers can consider the body as a site of transformation, place as a construct shaped by memory and culture, and space as both perceptual and material.