Star Montana

Star Montana, a photographer whose portraits describe their subjects with a deep sensitivity and clarity, created a series of 26 portraits of families from the Borrego Springs community.

During the Festival, the works were on view in temporary gallery space located in The Mall, the town’s primary commercial center, as part of the group exhibition Our Borrego Springs that features work by 13 local photographers envisioning their own visual definitions of this unique desert town.

Star Montana is a photo-based artist who lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. She was born and raised in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East Los Angeles, which is predominantly Mexican American and serves as the backdrop to much of her work.

Her work has recently been exhibited at Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles; Residency Art Gallery, Los Angeles; LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, Los Angeles; Occidental College, Los Angeles; The Mexican Center for Culture and Cinematic Arts at the Mexican Consulate General of Mexico, Los Angeles; The Main Museum, Los Angeles; Ballroom Marfa, Texas; and Vincent Price Art Museum, East Los Angeles. Montana will be an artist-in-residence at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in 2020.

She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Art from the University of Southern California, a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from the School of Visual Arts, and an Associate of Arts in Photography from East Los Angeles College.

Image: Star Montana, Borrego Springs Families, 2020, photography. Commissioned for the 2020 Candlewood Arts Festival by Under the Sun Foundation. Images: Courtesy of the artist.