'Artist on Artist': Esteban Cabeza de Baca & Heidi Howard
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Join us for the first edition of MCASD’s new program series, "Artist on Artist," featuring artist Esteban Cabeza de Baca (whose work, "Long Lost Relationship," is currently on view in Land and Sea) and artist Heidi Howard. Presented with Two Rooms, this program takes place ahead of the artists’ exhibition opening of "Visions for Civic Gardens."
"Artist on Artist" brings two creative minds together for an intimate conversation, where artists explore each other’s methods, practices, and inspirations. Through dialogue, they uncover shared themes, unique approaches, and the stories behind their work, offering audiences a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the artistic process.
Program:
5:30 p.m.: Doors Open
6 p.m.: Introductions
6:10 p.m.: Talk with Esteban Cabeza de Baca and Heidi Howard begins
7 p.m. – 9p.m.: Visions for Civic Gardens Exhibition Opening at Two Rooms. OFFSITE: 5560 La Jolla Blvd. Floor 2, Suite D, San Diego, CA 92037 (7 minute drive)
About the artists:
Esteban Cabeza de Baca (he/they/him) (b. 1985, San Ysidro, California) is an American painter of Mexican and Native American heritage who lives and works between Queens, New York, and the Southwest United States. He numbers among his influences San Ysidro, the liminal border town of his youth, and his parents, whose intersectional political awareness and respect for human dignity led them to shelter migrants during his youth. Cabeza de Baca’s work entwines layers of graffiti, landscape, and pre-Columbian pictographs in ways that confound Cartesian single-point perspective. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of Art, Cooper Union (2010) and Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University (2014). He has had solo exhibitions at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art (2025); Parker Gallery, Los Angeles (2024); Garth Greenan Gallery, New York (2023); The Momentary, Arkansas (2022); Boers-Li Gallery, New York (2019); and Kunstfort Vijfhuizen, Amsterdam (2019). He has participated group exhibitions at MCA San Diego, California (2025); Museo Del Barrio, New York (2024); Armory Center for Arts, Pasadena (2023); the Drawing Center, New York (2019). Cabeza de Baca’s works are part of the permanent collections of Harvard University, the North Dakota Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Parrish Art Museum, Phoenix Art Museum and Williams College Museum of Art.
Heidi Howard (She/They) is an American artist born, raised, and currently based in Queens, New York. Howard’s work extends the legacy of New York painting looking from Alice Neel to the Abstract Expressionists. In Howard’s performances and installations, color engages space through gesture, marking a specific point in time and way of cultural and community-based engagement. The core of their practice stems from portraits painted with a sitter in the room. Their process and style changes with each person, reflecting the color feelings of both Howard and the sitter, their shared aesthetics, environment, and the images that emerge over the course of the sitting. Howard’s work has been exhibited across the United States and Europe. Their first monograph "Colors make us do vibrant deeds!" was released in 2024 and will be on view this fall at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam as part of the year’s Best Dutch Book Designs.
About Two Rooms Gallery:
Two Rooms is an artist-run gallery and project space founded by Lizzie Zelter in January 2023. Two Rooms works with artists engaged in contemporary practices in the San Diego / Tijuana bi-national region dedicated to experimentation, critical thinking, and the creative process.
About "Visions for Civic Gardens":
Esteban Cabeza de Baca and Heidi Howard
August 29 - October 4
Book a visit to see the Two Rooms exhibition here.
Two Rooms is proud to present "Visions for Civic Gardens," a two-person exhibition featuring Esteban Cabeza de Baca (b. 1985, San Ysidro, CA) and Heidi Howard (b. 1986, Queens, NY). Expanding upon the traditions of landscape painting and portraiture, Cabeza de Baca and Howard challenge conventional representations of place and personhood. Working both in their shared studio and directly within the natural environments they depict, the artists center collaborative and ecological approaches to artmaking. They have been creating alongside one another for over a decade after meeting in 2012 at Columbia University’s MFA program.
Cabeza de Baca’s practice intertwines temporalities, histories, and cultural narratives. Incorporating plein-air painting with material experimentation, his paintings and sculptures reveal multiple dimensions of landscapes that are both observed and imagined. Howard is primarily a live portrait painter, channeling her sitters’ spirits into bright colors and wild patterns. She connects with her sitters through shared memories, conversations, and ideas. Howard then lets these conjured perceptions and associations guide her paintings.
In "Visions for Civic Gardens," Cabeza de Baca and Howard share paintings and sculptures that reimagine San Diego’s past and future landscapes. Their work envisions a borderless city where humans and plants coexist and flourish. Drawing on both art historical references and contemporary political concerns, the artists explore the garden as a space of shared resources and civic possibility. Their paintings present speculative infrastructures that include outdoor activations, public restrooms, communal living spaces, and plant houses. Many works are influenced by Niki de Saint Phalle’s sculpture parks and her ethos as a feminist, activist, and collaborator with her partner, Jean Tinguely.
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