Art News & Features

Xavier Nuez’s Late Night Graffiti Photography, At The MarinMOCA

Vee Hua 華婷婷1 min readJanuary 27, 2009Add comment

Opening January 31st at the MarinMOCA (which is not in Marin, but in Novato, California — go figure) is a photography group show entitled Depth of Perception. The show features dozens of artists, including Sebastian Davila, Dan Van Winkle, and Andrea Land.

The artist I would like to highlight at this moment, however, is Xavier Nuez, who will be showcasing two pieces from his Alleys series. If society has told the public that there’s nothing redeeming about dingy abandoned buildings and dark freeway underpasses, Nuez thinks otherwise. This series features hyper-colored high-contrast nighttime shots of graffiti-covered bridges, industrial waste sites, and overgrown vegetations, in historically downtrodden places such as Detroit and Compton. Nuez sheds light — quite literally — on these dark and dingy places, and he relives his family history of homelessness and experiences with violent street gangs through these visual testaments to his past.

www.nuez.com

Tagged asmarinmoca photography southern california artists urban xavier nunez

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Vee Hua 華婷婷

Vee Hua 華婷婷 (they/them) is a writer, filmmaker, and artist who splits their time between Oaxaca, Mexico, and Seattle, Washington. Much of their work unifies their metaphysical interests with their belief that art can positively transform the self and society. They are the Editor-in-Chief of REDEFINE, Interim Editor-in-Chief of International Examiner, and an Environmental Justice reporter at South Seattle Emerald. They also previously served as the Executive Director of the interdisciplinary community hub, Northwest Film Forum, where they played a key role in making the space more welcoming and accessible for diverse audiences.

Their latest short film, Reckless Spirits (2022), is a metaphysical, multi-lingual POC buddy comedy; the feature film version is slated for production in 2026. In 2025, they premiere their documentary short film, Hunt's Trading Post, set just outside of the Navajo and Ute Nations.

In 2017, Vee released the narrative short film, Searching Skies — which touches on Syrian refugee resettlement in the United States — and co-organized The Seventh Art Stand, a national film and civil rights discussion series against Islamophobia.

Vee has two narrative short films. Searching Skies (2017) touches on Syrian refugee resettlement in the United States; with it, they helped co-organize The Seventh Art Stand, a national film and civil rights discussion series against Islamophobia. Reckless Spirits (2022) is a metaphysical, multi-lingual POC buddy comedy for a bleak new era, in anticipation of a feature-length project.

Vee is passionate about cultural space, the environment, and finding ways to covertly and overtly disrupt oppressive structures. They also regularly share observational human stories through their storytelling newsletter, RAMBLIN’ WITH VEE!. They have a Master’s in Tribal Resource and Environmental Stewardship under the Native American Studies Department at the University of Minnesota and are pursuing a certificate in Incidencias en Problemas Socioambientales at the Universidad del Medio Ambiente in Mexico.

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