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From November 14 to December 10, 2024, the Steppling Gallery at San Diego State University, Imperial Valley Campus, will host Across All Terrain, Land, & the Landscape, an immersive exhibition showcasing the work of renowned artists Guillermo Estrada, Fidel Hernandez, and Alex Leyva. This dynamic exhibit explored the complex relationships between people and the land, offering a multifaceted perspective on the diverse and often paradoxical ways landscapes are shaped by both natural and human forces.
The exhibition challenged traditional notions of land and terrain through a combination of paintings, sculptures, multimedia installations, and photography, inviting viewers to reconsider their interactions with the environment and the often-overlooked socio-political dynamics that influence these relationships.
“Every artist brings their own perspective and the work is minimalist, modern, and in style,” said Luis Hernandez, director of the Steppling Galley at San Diego State University Imperial Valley Campus.
Guillermo Estrada’s work delved deeply into the themes of migration, both physical and spiritual, in La Gran Tripulación (2024), an expansive installation that challenged boundaries across time and space. The piece served as a passageway—a multidimensional space where migration transcended physical borders, encompassing the mental, emotional, and cosmic. Through iconography that fused Mexican and North American pop cultural references with Christian and Kumiai mythological elements, Estrada evoked an alternate reality where bodies and souls migrated to new temporalities and geographies. His exploration of “Aliendigenismo,” a term he coined to describe his navigation of geographic, mental, and cosmic boundaries, drew from his lived experience in the border regions of Tecate, Calexico, Mexicali, and San Diego/Tijuana.
Estrada’s work blurred the lines between the cultural and the cosmic, offering a creative space where tradition was not fixed but continually reinterpreted, “revitalizing and updating” cultural traits as part of an ongoing process. Through this framework, he invited viewers to contemplate their own spiritual and cultural migrations, expanding the concept of land and territory into the infinite realms of the imagination.
Fidel Hernandez’s latest series, Landscapes and Space (ongoing), reflected his personal connection to the desert landscapes of Baja California, Mexico, and its intersections with human activity. His use of spray paint and acrylic on paper presented a minimalist yet profound exploration of the desert terrain—juxtaposing organic, fluid forms of the natural landscape with hard-edged stenciled shapes and text representing human influence. Hernandez drew on his memory and found images to create compositions that challenged the viewer to consider the human presence within these vast, desolate spaces.
His clean, geometric aesthetic reflected what might be called “contemporary border chic”—an approach that brought a new layer of complexity to the concept of landscape. Hernandez’s interdisciplinary work, spanning from drawing and painting to performance and social media, drew on the social and political realities of the US-Mexico border. As the founder of Baja Ghost Collective, Hernandez encouraged collaborations that connected art and community, creating immersive experiences where the cultural dynamics of the border region were at the forefront.
Alex Leyva’s installations offered a powerful study of the intersection between art, architecture, and landscape. Her site-specific works engaged with the stark, often harsh beauty of desert landscapes, particularly in northwestern Mexico, while exploring the transformative power of light—both natural and artificial. Leyva used transparent, reflective, and iridescent materials to create ethereal environments that challenged the viewer’s perception of space and form. Her installations invited an exploration of the desert as a site of constant transformation, where light played a pivotal role in altering the viewer’s experience of the landscape.
Two of her works featured in the exhibition stood out for their poignant commentary on land, migration, and the human experience. El Coyote (2024), a sculptural piece made from chicken wire, metal mesh, and red organza, spoke to the migrant experience and the dual meaning of the term “coyote”—both the animal and the human smugglers who facilitate illegal border crossings. The juxtaposition of industrial materials with the delicate, floating organza fabric created a powerful metaphor for the fragility of life in the desert borderlands, where human lives are commodified and exploited in a dangerous, invisible network.
Another notable work, Fibras mundanas (mundane fibers) (2024), was a kinetic light sculpture that highlighted the industrial imprints left on the land by agriculture, particularly in the cotton fields of the region. The sculpture wove a conversation between the hard metal meshes used in agricultural production and the soft, organic forms of cotton. The contrast between rigidity and delicacy emphasized themes of resilience and survival in harsh conditions, while the shifting light evoked the changing relationship between humans and the land they inhabit.
