Calderón Ruiz’s inaugural exhibition, Eagle and Serpent, features works by Esteban Ramón Pérez and Jaime Muñoz in an elegantly sparse installation at the 1,800-square-foot gallery. Both artists are Mexican American and based in California, and their works plumb the depths of the West Coast Chicanx experience and Rasquachismo aesthetics. But that is where the similarities end. Pérez’s massive leather sculptures, mounted on the wall or suspended from the ceiling using lowrider bike parts, are inscribed with imagery from pre-Hispanic codices and Mexican boxing history using a tattoo needle. Muñoz’s paintings on wood panel, which incorporate glitter and acrylics to achieve an uncanny graphic language, reference labor and working-class culture through elements as diverse as an hourglass and a workload truck.
