EARLVILLE – The Earlville Opera House Arts Center on Saturday, Aug. 7, from 6-7:30 p.m: Traveling Landscapes with acrylic paintings by Jim Loveless and Ray Wengenroth, photographs by Jim Leach and Everyday Meditations with thread on paper towel pieces and pencil drawings by Arjan Zazueta.

In the East Gallery, Arjan Zazueta of Syracuse employs methodical processes to explore the concepts of identity, hybridity, and gender. Embroidery is the traditional province of the feminine, Arjan takes up the needle to hand-stitch abstract patterns, “creating works that formally relate to minimalism, design and abstraction.” Thus he embeds, “multiple layers of identity in the artwork, based on [his] Mexican-American heritage and [his] desire to confuse stereotypical notions of feminine and masculine.” Exhibited alongside and in contrast are drawings born quickly and uncensored as a result of a new baby influencing the artist’s workday patterns, “at 7 a.m., without planning, plotting, or sketching, before his workday begins.” A cast of characters from his past, including his family, populate the drawings. “This work is a departure from the other half of my art practice where I make a conscious decision to not include family or past directly in the work.in these drawings there is no conscious censor. There is only repetition, focus, and the space between awake and asleep.”