I strive to paint as my mother cooks. For us, the process is absorbing, spiritual, sometimes transcendent – and complete only when you are involved in the outcome. My goal is to initiate shared experiences that we’ll enjoy again and again. I revel in bold colors applied with big brushes and palette knives. I’m looking for the essence of the subject, its truth, more than its details. Rather than rein this state in, I work to sustain it. Thus, I ensure my paintings are never too finished; in fact, they succeed only when there are conceptual spaces for you to fill. There’s no right or wrong way to do that. If you stand closely to my painting, you should begin to feel the way I felt in creating it. If you step back, we can resolve the image together. – Lisa Noonis

Jonathan Christensen Caballero’s multi-media figurative sculptures are both personal and political. Inspired by familial ties, his work focuses on the immigrant experience and gives visibility to the struggles of the working class, including Latin American laborers in the United States.

Christensen Caballero uses a number of materials to create his life-sized sculptures, including red earthenware, recycled fibers, and fabrics, readymade objects, building materials, indigo, metal, and wood. His choice of materials is deliberate and layered with meaning and history. The red earthenware faces begin as life castings of people in the artist’s life. The indigo and denim used in the construction of his figures reference the history of labor. The reused tablecloths, bedsheets, and work tools that clothe and adorn these figures relate to specific objects that laborers work with today. Additionally, the iconography and artist’s choice of color palette acknowledge the pre-colonized art of the Americas.

Jonathan Christensen Caballero depicts moments of labor and struggle alongside feelings of love and joy. Poignant, hopeful, and rich in meaning, the works in this exhibition are a reminder of existing inequities, of our common bonds and interdependence.

Jonathan Christensen Caballero was born and raised in Utah. He graduated from Utah State University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in ceramics and sculpture and completed his Master of Fine Arts in ceramics from Indiana University in the spring of 2020. He is the current Interdisciplinary Ceramic Research Center (ICRC) Artist in Residence at Kansas University in Lawrence. He is a recipient of the International Sculpture Center Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award and was recently recognized as a 2021 Emerging Artist by Ceramics Monthly.

For high-resolution images, click here. Artist bio and additional images are available on our website.

Union Station Opens Highly Anticipated, Internationally Awarded Exhibition

Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away.

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The exhibition – opened today with a record 80,000 pre-sold tickets — features more than700 original artifacts, 400 photographs and rare, unpublished memoirs, many ofwhich are being seen in public for the first time.

Today, on the 81^st anniversary of the first transport of 728 Polish men to the German Nazi Auschwitz camp in 1940, Union Station opened the most comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the history of Auschwitz and its role in the Holocaust ever offered in North America. Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. — presented by Bank of America — is produced in partnership with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland and the Spain-based international exhibition producers, Musealia. The groundbreaking exhibition has been curated by an international team of experts led by historian Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt.

“Today, Union Station opened one of the most important exhibitions in our history”, George Guastello, Union Station president and CEO, said. “ Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. is meant to stir the conscience of the world and ensure none of us ever stands by to let the seeds of hatred and indifference grow again. The consequences, otherwise, are devastating. Everyone should make plans to take advantage of this rare opportunity to learn profound lessons from the not-too-distant past.”