ARTIST BIOS:
Michael Arcega (born Manila, Philippines) lives in San Francisco where he currently maintains an art practice and teaches at SFSU. He holds a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and MFA from Stanford University. His art research is a poetic investigation around power dynamics, marginalized communities and hidden histories. His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums internationally and have been discussed in academic journals, art publications and a broad range of media platforms. His practice has been supported by a number of grants, fellowships and residencies internationally.

IG: mike_arcega
Website: arcega.us
Lorena Endara (b. 1984, Panama City, Panama) became interested in photography at the age of seventeen and has been practicing ever since. She recently exhibited at GuatePhoto, the Pingyao International Photography Festival, and the Contemporary Art Museum in Rome. She has participated in several residency programs and received awards for her photography, from organizations such as IILA-Fotografia, the Banff Center, Daylight Magazine and the Center for Documentary Studies. Endara is a member of FotoFéminas, a collective of female photographers from Latin America. She is currently based in Los Angeles, CA where she teaches and creates multimedia art.

IG: lalorilori
website: lorenaendara.com
Felicity Machado is a multi-media artist whose work contemplates the information gleaned from site-specific ecologies and technology. Drawing upon her multicultural lens, as a Brazilian-Mexican-American, she utilizes multiple visual, linguistic, and data-driven/ digital perspectives to create her work. These perspectives take the form of videos, installations, sculptures, and performances. Machado received her BA from the University of California Davis and her MFA in Sculpture Dimensional Studies from Alfred University.

IG: felicity_a_machado
Gozie Ojini is an artist working primarily in sculpture and installation. His works employ careful gestures with found objects and readymades to explore ideas about disembodied labor, non-performance, and the alignment of object and subject. He is based in Los Angeles and has recently been accepted to the Yale School of Art as a 2025 Sculpture MFA candidate.

IG: blestwun
Nicole Baker Peterson is an American born experimental filmmaker and transmedia artist, working between digital glitch video and analog film. She is a some-time programmer and founder of the live-stream experimental film series Media Monsters. Her award winning work has been exhibited globally, most recently as part of the Fu:bar Glitch and New Media Art Festival in Zagreb, Croatia and the International Competition for Intermedia Artwork in Krakow, Poland. She is currently living in and making new work globally and online.

IG: magiklatern
And/Or is a pop-up art project initiated by Vanessa Briones and Tina Ford in 2018. This project was inspired by the connection they found around being mixed race. And/Or emerged from a desire to find common ground in the in-between spaces, where differences intersect. They use this as a springboard for extrapolating themes artists can converge around.
Thank you for another year of Mata Art Gallery! Please consider donating to help us keep this project going. We're a completely not-for-profit creative space funded by the community. We never ask for submission fees or commissions, & artists receive 100% of their artwork sales. Your donations help pay the artists directly & help us continue to sustain this space.

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