Finding Our Way Home | Curated by Casie Lomeli | May 31st - June 28th, 2025
Open Reception: Saturday, May 31st, 7 - 11pm
Open Hours: Saturdays, 12 - 3pm
Closing Reception: Saturday, June 28th, 6 - 9pm
Juan Carlos Escobedo
“This exhibition is an exploration of the shared dread of losing a place, searching for belonging, and the celebration of the spaces we uncover when we find our way home, wherever that may be.” -Casie Lomeli
Participating Artists: Alexander Barrón, Kat Cadena, Juan Carlos Escobedo, Veronica Ibargüengoitia, Nadin Nassar, and Jo E Norris
“This exhibition is an exploration of the shared dread of losing a place, searching for belonging, and the celebration of the spaces we uncover when we find our way home, wherever that may be.” -Casie Lomeli
MotherShip Studios announces their upcoming exhibition, Finding Our Way Home, a group exhibition opening May 31, 2025. Featuring artists from and connected to Texas, this exhibition explores the complex landscapes of displacement, resilience, and connection that shape our understanding of place and community.
Alongside a shared sense of community, this exhibition comes together during a time of extreme political upheaval in the United States. We all stand witness to the tragic harassment and dehumanization of people that find their home in this country. By presenting intimate stories and relatable narratives, this collection of works asks viewers to recognize our shared humanity: beneath our diverse experiences lies a universal longing for dignity and place. This exhibition is an exploration of the shared dread of losing a place, searching for belonging, and the celebration of the spaces we uncover when we find our way home, wherever that may be.
Guest curator Casie Lomeli speaks on how the show emerged from a desire for MotherShip studios to connect with a broader community. As a burgeoning studio and exhibition space founded in 2020, MotherShip has carved out a space in San Marcos offering affordable studio spaces for local artists, various community programs, and the annual San Marcos Studio Tour. In recent years, they’re expanding their reach by inviting guest curators.
Lomeli is an arts administrator and curator based in San Antonio, Texas. Her practice is centered on creating meaningful conversations that explore the complexities of the human experience, particularly those that involve identity, memory, and ancestry. Lomeli told MotherShip Studios, “When I connected with Jacqueline Overby, one of the founders of the space, and she expressed the desire to bring in guest curators and expand outside of the San Marcos/Austin area, I immediately sensed a connection of interests. When I visited MotherShip, which is built out in an industrial warehouse park, I knew the space was something special. It reminded me of Sala Diaz, a nonprofit gallery that I run alongside Director Ethel Shipton. Both spaces were founded by artists, built in unconventional spaces, and have a strong sense of community; People that are a part of these spaces put in enormous passion, time, and valuable skills to provide a place for artists and the community to gather and create.”
About Casie Lomeli
Originally from Kyle, TX, Casie studied Art History and Business at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Over the past decade, Casie has immersed herself in the Contemporary Art community in San Antonio. She has held positions at Ruiz-Healy Art gallery and Artpace San Antonio, and has collaborated with organizations such as Luminaria, Clamp Light Artist Studios & Gallery, Planned Parenthood South Texas, and more. She also serves as the Exhibitions Manager at Sala Diaz, a local non-profit art gallery, and is a dedicated Board Member and Co-Chair for Contemporary Art Month San Antonio. Currently, Lomeli is the New Media and Communications Coordinator at Contemporary at Blue Star.
Casie’s practice is centered on creating meaningful conversations that explore the complexities of the human experience, particularly those that involve identity, memory, and ancestry. At times her work is focused and centers on communications strategies for arts organizations, and other times it’s more poetic and curatorial, providing another avenue of storytelling. At the end of the day, Casie’s practice is centered around the artist, the stories they’re bringing to life, and the importance of sharing that with the community and documenting that work for future generations to expand on.
For the third curated show at MotherShip Studios, complimentary drinks will be offered from our sponsors Austin Beer Works, Tito’s Vodka, Cara Buena Tequila and Topo Chico. In addition to the opening reception Saturday 5/31 7-11pm, open hours will be held Saturdays 12-3pm, followed by a closing on Saturday June 28th from 6-9pm.
Exhibition Dates: May 31st 2025 - June 28th
Artist Reception: Saturday, June 28th, 7-11pm
Exhibition Open Hours Saturdays 12:00 - 3:00 pm
Closing Reception June 28th, 6-9 pm
Artist Bios
Alexander Barrón is a self-taught artist from Laredo, Texas whose gestural paintings capture the essence of growing up in a border town. Through muted tones and loose brushwork, he recreates scenes from his upbringing—parties, family dinners—with a slightly blurred quality that mirrors his effort to recall memories from two, five, ten years ago. Barrón's work explores the duality of his border experience: part tejano music and tíos, part punk musicians and skaters, reflecting the unique otherness that comes with inhabiting the in-betweenness of countries and cultures.
His artwork has been exhibited at Gallery 201, Laredo College, and the Laredo Center for the Arts. Barrón's murals appear throughout Laredo, including his "Great Futures Start Here" piece at the Northwest Boys and Girls Club. He served as one of the lead artists for a massive 30,000 square foot, 17-column mural on the Lafayette Bridge Overpass in the Canta Ranas neighborhood, and was selected for the 2023 Cultivarte Laredo Artist-in-Residence cohort.
Kat Cadena is a multimedia artist, celebrated muralist and independent illustrator. She was raised by multiple generations of strong, proud and fierce mestiza women in San Antonio, Texas. Cadena’s bright pink portraits and murals depict unflinchingly emotional subjects, most often, women. Surrounded by monumental, flowing medicinal herbs and flowers, her works are a nod to a simultaneous keeping of tradition and an intentional breaking of cycles.
Juan Carlos Escobedo explores his identity as a brown, Mexican-American queer male, raised in a low-socioeconomic community along the US/Mexico border. His work addresses residual class and race shame that arises from living in a predominantly white, structured United States that favors light-skinned individuals and middle-class-and-above socioeconomic classes. Escobedo received his BFA from New Mexico State University and MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
Veronica Ibargüengoitia conceives spaces as containers for the self that develop relationships through dwelling and time. Her work draws from installations, sculptural objects, and social practice. She explores the human being's flexibility, adaptation, and resilience in migration beyond nationality, race, origin, or beliefs and how landscape, language, belonging, culture, physical risks, and disorientation influence the reconstruction of the identity in a new dwelling experience.
Ibargüengoitia was born in Mexico City and immigrated to the United States in 2009. She has an MA in Philosophy and Humanities from Casa Lamm, a Certificate in Painting and Sculpture from The Glassell School of Arts, MFAH, and a Bachelor's in Industrial Design from Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. Currently, she is an MFA student at the University of North Texas. Ibargüengoitia was part of the MFAH Block program and was awarded the 2020 Houston Artadia Fellowship Award; and is a finalist of the 2021 Prisma Art Prize Rome. Her work has been exhibited at the Holocaust Museum in Houston, Texas; Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans, El Paso Museum of Art; Texas, and Museo de Arte Ciudad Juárez; Mexico.
Born in Cairo, Egypt, Nadin Nassar is an artist who examines the dehumanization of marginalized populations—exploring themes of violence, identity, and resilience through fragmented and abstract forms. Through her practice, she reclaims narratives of humanity and agency, using sculpture and installation to address the enduring impact of systemic erasure and oppression.
Nassar is an artist and educator currently based in Texas—earning her BFA in Sculpture from the University of Houston in 2022, and currently pursuing an MFA in Sculpture at the University of North Texas, where she also serves as an instructor for the undergraduate Sculpture program. She has exhibited her work in galleries across the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, the Greater Houston area where she was featured in the 2023 Sculpture Month Houston exhibition, and Birmingham, Alabama, where she exhibited work as part of the 2024 Mid-South Sculpture Alliance Conference. In 2025, her work was included in Materials: Hard and Soft at the Greater Denton Arts Council.
Jo E Norris (they/them) is a storyteller who weaves photography and mixed-media to explore life's nuances, particularly around identity and belonging. Drawing from personal experience, archives, and craft, Norris shapes narratives that began long before their artistic process. Their recent installation chronicles a years-long journey documenting their family, especially in relation to what they affectionately call "the Farmhouse," a hoosier homestead.
A graduate of Central Michigan University where they studied global and cultural studies, and Delta College where they focused on journalism, Norris currently works as a visual journalist with The San Antonio Express-News.
About the Curator
Originally from Kyle, TX, Casie Lomeli studied Art History and Business at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Over the past decade, Casie has immersed herself in the Contemporary Art community in San Antonio. She has held positions at Ruiz-Healy Art gallery and Artpace San Antonio, and has collaborated with organizations such as Luminaria, Clamp Light Artist Studios & Gallery, Planned Parenthood South Texas, and more. She also serves as the Exhibitions Manager at Sala Diaz, a local non-profit art gallery, and is a dedicated Board Member and Co-Chair for Contemporary Art Month San Antonio. Currently, Lomeli is the New Media and Communications Coordinator at Contemporary at Blue Star.
Casie’s practice is centered on creating meaningful conversations that explore the complexities of the human experience, particularly those that involve identity, memory, and ancestry. At times her work is focused and centers on communications strategies for arts organizations, and other times it’s more poetic and curatorial, providing another avenue of storytelling. At the end of the day, Casie’s practice is centered around the artist, the stories they’re bringing to life, and the importance of sharing that with the community and documenting that work for future generations to expand on.
