Image may be NSFW.
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In 2016, Monica Canilao & Xara Thustra combined their vision, talents, and activism to form a legendary creative partnership: MCXT. Their work is big in scale and heart. MCXT uses drawing, installation, murals, and other media to cultivate a sense of wonder and mindfulness that can help us see the infinite stories in and between people, objects, and ideas.
The artists often sketch and paint over one another, layering their visions to create large scale artwork that challenges the viewer to step back and think about topics like love, self determination, one’s own stories, and others’ possible stories.
Coming up in the Bay Area’s thriving DIY community, Monica and Xara bonded over their shared feminist and anti-capitalist ethics.
Infinite Other is their first large scale museum exhibition– most of the artwork was made just in the last 18 months. However, not all the artwork in the exhibition is new. MCXT thoughtfully chose artifacts from the MAH’s archives to incorporate into the show. The mix of new and repurposed objects creates art that explores the infinite stories and intimate connections we share as people.
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Photo by Clayton Cubitt.
MORE ABOUT THE ARTISTS
MCXT is a creative partnership between Monica Canilao and Xara Thustra.
Monica Canilao has deep investment in ideas surrounding home, community, and the passage of time. These themes are delicately interwoven throughout her art practice. Fascinated with the imprint people leave behind, Canilao creates a visual record from salvaged objects and weathered images. Her work spans from massive paper and fabric structures, site-specific installations, from large murals to meticulous paintings, mixed media works, jewelry constructions, and sculptures. She has shown artwork recently nationally and internationally at Muddguts Gallery in New York, Red Truck Gallery in New Orleans, Chandran Gallery in San Francisco, and KRETZ in Malmo, Sweden.
Xara Thustra artistic practice spans huge public dinner parties, street art, screen printed posters, calendars, murals, paintings, videos, music, performance, dance parties, and elaborate protests throughout the Bay Area. Xara’s art provides many of the most powerful visual images of the Bay Area’s anti-displacement and anti-war struggles of the past two decades, their artistic collaborations have given essential support to organizations like the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition and the Coalition on Homelessness.
