City College’s art department opened the Gregory Kondos Gallery to art students and the public on Tuesday Feb. 13, to present a talk led by artist Pilar Agüero-Esparza on a collection of her multimedia artwork, titled “Stratum,” an exhibit featured in the Kondos Gallery until March 1.
“Myself and a group of colleagues wanted to bring something to the art department to help encourage their current students and help inspire them to bring out more of their work,” said ceramics professor Mark Bogyski, adding that he wanted to give art department students a special mentor or someone who they could relate to who was once a student like them.
Agüero-Esparza was born and raised in a small community in Los Angeles, California in 1966, and is of Mexican descent. Agüero-Esparza has had her work shown all across California, including at City College, San Jose City College, and at multiple museums around the world. Agüero-Esparza is currently a high school art teacher.
Agüero-Esparza’s work “Explores issues of colorism and social hierarchies while engaging with ideas of materiality, meaning, and the handmade object as entry points for discussions on race, equity and empathy,” according to her professional website. More of Agüero-Esparza’s work can also be found on her website.
The event opened with an introduction by Agüero-Esparza, where she gave her background story of how she fell in love with art and got involved with it. Agüero-Esparza then provided a slideshow of her work that she had put together with her thoughts and reasonings behind each and every piece.
As a child, Agüero-Esparza’s parents really didn’t understand her work as she was born into a family of shoemakers, who created all types of shoes for their community. According to Agüero-Esparza, it was a while before they actually understood what she was doing with her colorful art pieces, but once they did, they fell in love.
After the introduction and slide show, the art department offered a reception serving pizza and drinks for the students in attendance while opening up the department gallery doors to show Agüero-Esparza’s work in person in the Kondos Gallery.
“I feel the talk went very well, I really enjoyed hearing about her work and her story, I love her work,” said Ellie Green, an art history major.
During the reception, Agüero-Esparza spoke about how she fell in love with art at a young age. “I was about six or seven and I was about in the first grade, I believe, I know I was really young when I first fell in love with color,” she said.
She continued, “Out of all the awards I have won from my work, it doesn’t only make me feel happy and excited, it also makes me feel great and recognized as an individual of minority.”
One award Agüero-Esparza is set to receive in 2025 is the “Prestigious Eureka Fellowship Award from the Fleishhacker Foundation, San Francisco,” according to her website bio.
Jason Nguyen, a kinesiology major, said, “I really enjoyed the talk and Pilar’s work, it really shows race and color, her work really brings a good sense of community.”
Agüero-Esparza admitted that she loves color because it reminds her of unity, community and togetherness. It also reminds her of a horrific event as a kid, the 1992 Los Angeles Riots that occurred after the beating of Rodney King, and other more recent unjust horrific events like the death of George Floyd in 2020.
Agüero-Esparza’s work is being shown at City College’s Kondos Gallery until March 1.
