From: george@georgeyepes.com <george@georgeyepes.com>
Date: Thu, May 24, 2018 at 4:06 PM
Subject: GEORGE YEPES: CITY OF LOS ANGELES ICON DE ARTES AWARD RECIPIENT; CHEECH MARIN AND THE GETTY: POBLADORES AWARD RECIPIENTS - TRIBUTE GALA DINNER: JUNE 20, 2018
To: pueblosenmovimientonorte@gmail.com


For Immediate Release: Open to the Public

GEORGE YEPES: CITY OF LOS ANGELES ICON DE ARTES AWARD RECIPIENT   
CHEECH MARIN AND THE GETTY: POBLADORES AWARD RECIPIENTS

LA PLAZA DE CULTURA Y ARTES
TRIBUTE GALA DINNER: JUNE 20, 2018 
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90012  USA                 

For over 44 years, Painter/Muralist - George Yepes, through his artwork,
from East Los Angeles, to Princeton, Harvard, NASA, Dubai, and Hollywood's Silver Screens,
Yepes has been an ambassador of Art and Culture for the City of Los Angeles.
On June 20, 2018, the City of Los Angeles will induct George Yepes as a “Los Angeles Icon de Artes”.

LA Plaza’s Board of Trustees Cordially Invites You to attend:
the June 20, 2018 Tribute Gala Dinner Honoring:
George Yepes as a Los Angeles Icon de Artes Award Recipient;
and also Richard “Cheech” Marin: Entertainer and Chicano Art collector;
and The Getty - as recipients of the Pobladores Award.

RSVP:  For Tribute Gala Dinner information contact:
Tracy Serrano at (213) 542-6234 or tserrano@lapca.org

Event Location:
LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes
501 North Main Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012  USA

www.georgeyepes.com
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LA WEEKLY

"BEST INDESCRIBABLE WALL ART" - BEST OF LOS ANGELES
George Yepes.  "Muralist and Painter Yepes is Los Angeles' greatest
living Baroque artist".

Marc B. Haefele, Writer

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"When it comes to sheer touch that combines beautiful control over line
and brushwork, yet seemingly spontaneous expression,
George Yepes is among the best.  His darkly romantic excess can't help
but make you think he would have been Dante Gabriel
Rossetti's (1828 - 1882, London, England), equal among the
Pre-Raphaelites.  But these saints and sinners are hardly a throwback. 
Yepes' painting has a visual density and suggestiveness that is as
tantalizing to the intellect as it is arresting for the eye".

ArtScene 
The Guide to over 450 Los Angeles Art Galleries and Museums

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“Tikkun Olam” To Repair the World

"Like Jacopo Robusti Tintoretto (1518 - 1594, Venice, Italy), George
Yepes has the ability to pull down from heaven the designs which God has
for humans and paint them so people can discover through the paintings what they
are deaf to in words”.

Dr. David Carrasco, Professor - Historian of Religions
Editor-in-Chief, Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures
Director, Moses Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project
Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of the Study of Latin America
Divinity School - Harvard University

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Called "The City's Preeminent Badass Muralist" (L.A. New Times), and named a "Treasure of Los Angeles" in 1997 by Mayor Richard Riordan and the Los Angeles City Council, painter George Yepes takes no prisoners.  In 1992, George Yepes was named "El Fuego de Los Angeles" (The Fire of Los Angeles) by Councilman Richard Alatorre and the Los Angeles City Council.  In 1993, for the Los Angeles Subway project, George Yepes was partnered with Ricardo Legorreta, the AIA Gold Medal architect from Mexico City, as the duo "Lead Urban Design Team" in charge of designing seven subway stations beneath East Los Angeles. In 1997, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction named George Yepes to the State Task Force on the Visual and Performing Arts for the California Department of Education.  In 1998, the California Governor and Secretary of State hand picked George Yepes to design and paint a seventy-foot vaulted ceiling mural depicting "The Promise of California" at the State Capital in Sacramento.  In 1999, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously adopted a resolution commending George Yepes for establishing a training program that assisted teachers to effectively implement State Learning Standards for the Visual Arts.

Yepes' oeuvre incorporates art and architecture, ethereally beautiful women, world history, religion and literature presented in powerfully charged atmospheres. Self-taught, with a refined renaissance bent; from religious iconography to erotica George Yepes brings a confidence and knowledge of his craft that calls to mind the great Velasquez and Titian, and the great Mexican Muralists. Imbued with a contemporary street sense, his paintings and murals combine the best of both worlds where bravado meets classical standards.

During the 1970’s, as one of the more prolific painters of the Los Angeles Chicano Mural Movement, Yepes gained his reputation as a ferocious painter when he became a founding partner in the top mural groups of East Los Angeles.  In 1974, George Yepes  was a founding member of the Public Art Center, El Centro de Arte Publico, Concilio de Arte Popular, and Corazon Art Productions.  During that time Yepes collaborated with Los Four: Carlos Almaraz, Frank Romero, Gilbert “Magu” Lujan, and Beto de La Rocha; also Richard Duardo, Guillermo Bejarano, John Valadez, Tito Delgado, and Leo Limon.  In 1977, Yepes painted along with Gilbert “Magu” Lujan and John Valadez, the 40 foot tall by 60 foot wide mural for Cesar Chavez and the 1977 Farmworkers Convention in Fresno, California.  From 1979 through 1985, as the three original founding partners of the mural group "East Los Streetscapers”, Yepes painted murals with David Botello and Wayne Healy at the famous Estrada Courts and Ramona Gardens Housing Projects including: “Dreams of Flight”, “Ghosts of the Barrio”, “Read Between the Lines”, and the four panoramic “Moonscapes” murals in Culver City.  Over the course of six years, as a member of East Los Streetscapers, Yepes co-designed and painted 28 iconic murals that are regarded by historians as prime examples of the Los Angeles Chicano Mural Movement.

After 1985, as a solo-painter, with grand scale and furious momentum Yepes has painted over 800,000 square feet of murals. He has painted eloquent, social, historical, and sacred images onto the facades of everything from churches, hospitals, guitars, and freeway overpasses, to movies and album covers. His 1988 album cover for Los Lobos titled "La Pistola y El Corazon" has won numerous awards, and is in many museum collections.

In 1992, George Yepes founded the Academia de Arte Yepes, a free mural painting academy through which Yepes (the sole teacher and funder) has taught over 2,000 students, for free, from the low-income neighborhoods of Los Angeles.  Beginning in 1993, to generate renewed interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and to cultivate and inspire the next generation of explorers; George Yepes and the Academia de Arte Yepes, in partnership with NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana: established and implemented a fourteen-year National Educational Model titled: "The Marriage of Art, Science, and Technology".

George Yepes' paintings are in forty museum collections, and have been collected by a widely diverse audience including Sean Penn and Madonna, Patricia Arquette, Nicolas Cage, Cheech Marin, Anthony Keidis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Josh Brolin, Quentin Tarantino, and Robert Rodriguez.  In 1999, Yepes' Warner Bros. album cover for Los Lobos titled "La Pistola y El Corazon" was selected as one of the One Hundred Best Album Covers of All Time by the editors of Rolling Stone Magazine. Yepes' artwork is also on the cover of Untie the Strong Woman by bestselling author, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes.  Her book, Women Who Run With the Wolves was on the New York Times Best Seller list for 145 weeks.

Since the year 2000, Yepes has collaborated with Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino on numerous movie production projects including Once Upon a Time in Mexico 2003; the double feature Grind House 2007; Machete 2010; and the new 2014 Robert Rodriguez/Frank Miller movie, Sin City 2 "A Dame to Kill For".  Hollywood actors Salma Hayek, Johnny Depp, Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Eva Longoria, Carla Gugino, Marley Shelton, Patricia Arquette, Jessica Alba, Lady GaGa, Rose McGowen, Mickey Rourke, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rosario Dawson, Bruce Willis, and Jamie Chung have modeled for several Yepes paintings. 

For over 44 years, Painter/Muralist - George Yepes, through his artwork, from East Los Angeles, to Princeton, Harvard, NASA, Dubai, and Hollywood's Silver Screens, he has been an ambassador of Art and Culture for the City of Los Angeles. On June 20, 2018, the City of Los Angeles will induct George Yepes as a “Los Angeles Icon de Artes”.

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Tribute Gala Dinner: June 20, 2018

George Yepes: Recipient of the Los Angeles Icon de Artes Award;
and his participation with the Chicano pioneering collectives and arts organizations:
Los Four; East Los Streetscapers; Asco; Self-Help Graphics; Goez Gallery;
and The Social and Public Art Resource Center (Sparc). 
Entertainer and Chicano Art collector, Richard “Cheech” Marin
and The Getty, one of the world’s largest arts organizations
and lead Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA - recipients of the Pobladores Award.

RSVP:  For Tribute Gala Dinner information contact:
Tracy Serrano at (213) 542-6234 or tserrano@lapca.org


www.georgeyepes.com

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