Artists Invited To Explore Their Roots For Exhibition Open Call

Feel an overwhelming connection to your roots? Use it as artistic inspiration and enter OLA’s (Organización Latino Americana) open call for an upcoming exhibition curated by Amy Worth and Hector deCordova of The South Street Gallery in Greenport.

“OLA’s Benefit Art Show, Roots, is picking up on an Art focus we’ve had from the start,” Minerva Perez, OLA of Eastern Long Island Executive Director, relayed. “Joyce and Hector deCordova curated art shows for OLA in the past before I was involved full time. They are now joined by Amy Worth as well to curate Roots. This is open to all artists (Latino and non Latino).”

Roots will be on display at Southampton Cultural Center starting April 26 through May 5.

“We are lucky to work with Southampton Cultural Center on this Art Show,” Perez added. “They are fully collaborative and support OLA’s mission to include Art – as it central to a vibrant community.”

Roots is open to a variety of mediums, including painting, mixed media, drawing, collage, assemblage, printmaking, photography and computer graphics. Pieces may be no larger than 28×32 – including the outside dimension of the frame – and artists may submit up to three works.

OLA selected this particular theme because it can signify so many different things. “Why Roots? We are interested to see where the artists take this,” Perez reflected. “Some questions that we talked over included: What are the roots of a community and what keeps them healthy? Family, country, tradition, story? How do we define our origin stories? How do they intertwine?”

The submission deadline is March 15 and selected artists will be notified on April 1. As this is a benefit show, artists will receive 50 percent of the proceeds from their sold pieces, and the other half will be donated to OLA.

Founded in 2002, OLA is dedicated to championing “the social, economic, cultural, and educational development of Long Island’s East End Latino communities.” In particular, the 501c3 nonprofit organization focuses on advocacy, education, and the arts.

For more information, visit thesouthstreetgallery.com.