Fullerton Museum Center Debuts ‘OC Made,’ Spotlighting Local Orange County Artists
- Lola Olvera
- 1 day ago
- 9 min read
The new juried exhibition provides an open call opportunity for artists to show their work, win cash prizes and build their careers.
When Catherine “Cat” Montoya proudly showed her father her award-winning sculptural work “Orquídea/Orchid” at “OC Made’s” opening reception, it was the first time she saw him cry.
“I really wanted to be an artist, and it took him a long time to kind of accept that,” Montoya said. “I guess the night I invited him, he kind of saw me for who I was, and I've never seen him so proud of me … Like I gave him the hope that his sacrifices weren't for nothing.”
Fullerton Museum Center’s inaugural “OC Made” juried exhibition, poised to be a biennial cornerstone in its programming, opened March 21, featuring artwork by artists living and working in Orange County. The more than 100 artists and over 130 artworks in the collection provide a snapshot of Orange County that is thrillingly eclectic and surprisingly emotional.
“Everyone experiences life differently, but we're still all rooted in Orange County, and it's all these different stories and the different perspectives that make the fabric of what Orange County is and what the art world of Orange County is,” said Georgette Collard, Fullerton Museum Center curator. Collard co-curated the exhibition alongside Jasmine McNeal, Fullerton College’s art gallery curator.
The artwork spans almost every medium possible. Angie Stalker’s textile artwork “OO-fta Aloft” celebrates “awkward imperfection”; Jada Fonseca’s mixed media sculpture “Pernice the Purple Rabbit” entices viewers to tap into childlike imagination; Brooke Hunter’s oil painting “Center Stage” explores performance on and off-stage, and Joel “Bull” Hendricks’ photograph “Sunscreen” captures a moment of resilience.
The open call for the exhibition was announced on Sep. 8, 2025. Artists had to either be a resident, or work or attend school in Orange County to qualify.
PHOTO 1: Catherine Montoya and her father pose beside her sculpture “Orquidea/Orchid.” PHOTO 2: Rosanna Herrera poses beside her work “OC Born, NY Again.” PHOTO 3: Andrew Matthias poses beside his work “5¢ Cigar.” PHOTOS 4-6: Visitors admire the work on display at the Fullerton Museum Center's exhibition “OC Made.” Photos by Lola Olvera, Culture OC
“Some of the artists that are displaying, they come from different countries, but they live in Orange County now, and it's so great to see how things that happened in other countries, that they don't live in anymore, still affect their artwork and their creative process,” Collard said.
Mahtab Mohammadi’s oil painting “Persian Victory” explores grief and loss in modern Iran; Rafael Mejia’s oil painting “La Ofrenda” remembers the countryside of Michoacán; and Corey Linh’s silver gelatin print “A Community Market” documents the immigrant community of Little Saigon.
Montoya said that her father, who picked coffee beans in El Salvador before coming to the United States, felt self-conscious at the opening reception. It highlighted her belief that it’s necessary for people to see themselves reflected in institutions like museums.
“I remember him telling me he feels like he doesn't belong in this space 'cause he had his El Salvador jersey and his little blue hat and jeans,” she said. “He's like, ‘Everyone's wearing really nice attire, and I feel so out of place.’ And I told him, no, don't feel out of place because your daughter is here. If I can be here, you can be here.”
Montoya’s work “Orquídea/Orchid” won the Director’s Choice Award. The large, vaginal sculpture, made entirely out of recycled materials, addresses shame around the female body, its intentional asymmetry emphasizing natural imperfection. Her second sculpture, “My Little Oyster,” also focuses on turning shame and stigma into beauty.
Catherine Montoya with her pieces “Orquídea/Orchid” (left) and “My Little Oyster.” Photos courtesy of Catherine Montoya
Montoya is a California State University, Fullerton art major, with a concentration in teaching. She is among many other students, art majors and otherwise, showing their work at “OC Made.” One of “OC Made’s” goals, according to Collard, is nurturing a space where younger artists can network with more established artists and the guest jurors, opening up opportunities in their careers.
Montoya points out that many artists keep their work to themselves because of a lack of opportunities in Orange County to show their art. “A lot of people, this was their first time actually showing their art to other people in public,” she said. “A lot of the time people are like, ‘Oh, I can't ever show my art at a gallery, it's not worthy of that,’ and that's not true at all.”
The top three winners were Ramón Vargas’ mixed media painting “Wolf” (first place), Jaime Zacarias’ acrylic paintings “Viva La Lucha” (second place) and Mahta Jafari’s photo series “Oppression” (third place). Additionally, Jacquelin Nagel’s oil painting “Begonia Maculata” and Brooke Hunter’s oil painting “Center Stage” won the Curator’s Choice awards; Catherine Montoya’s acrylic and wood panel sculpture “Orquídea/Orchid” won Director’s Choice; Sian Poeschl’s glass sculpture “Setting Sun” won President's Choice and Alejandro Alba’s photograph “Los Enamorados” won People’s Choice.
The top three winners were chosen by the guest jurors: Abel Alejandre, a multidisciplinary artist; John D. Spiak, director and chief curator of the Grand Central Art Center; and Dave Tourjé, a multidisciplinary artist and co-founder of the California Locos collective. The Curator’s Choice awards were chosen by Collard and McNeal, the Director’s Choice award was selected by Fullerton Museum Center’s executive director, Elvia Susana Rubalcava, and the People’s Choice award was voted on by the public during the opening reception.
All winners received a cash prize, with the top three winning $1,200, $900 and $750, respectively, as well as an invitation to participate in Fullerton Museum Center’s artist-in-residence program and future exhibits. With the gallery space divided into three sections, each winning artist will be able to display their artwork for a six-week period. After allowing a few years for them to create new work, Fullerton Museum Center will also allow them to have their own solo show. Additionally, each winner will serve as an artist in residence for one or two weeks, creating art and community-centered engagements.
PHOTO 1: Ramón Vargas poses beside his work “Wolf.” Photo courtesy of Ramón Vargas. PHOTO 2: Ramon Vargas’ work “Cosmos.” Photo by Lola Olvera, Culture OC
Ramón Vargas, First Place ‘Wolf’ (2025), Mixed media, panel
Vargas’ two portraits in “OC Made” – “Wolf,” which won first place, and “Cosmos” – are part of a series heavily inspired by Diego Rivera’s “Flower Vendor” series, which highlights the labor of indigenous workers, with calla lilies as a key symbol.
“My grandfather was a bracero,” Vargas said. “My dad came over here when he was 9 years old, and I have a private art degree and an art practice? That's crazy to me. We've been so fortunate and so privileged to have the opportunities that we have here in this country, and a lot of us are doing so much with those opportunities. And so I wanted to create a series of portraits of brown and Black people that are clearly descended from immigrants, and their realized potential, symbolized through the flowers growing out of the tops of their head.”
The full series will contain 10 portraits, eight which are currently completed. All feature brown and Black people, and flowers indigenous to Mexico, South and Central America and Africa. In “Wolf,” a man with rich brown skin and dark hair stands in dignified profile, with yellow flowers – wolf oncidium, native to Bolivia – weaving through his two braids. The subject of “Wolf” is a friend of Vargas’, a barber in Santa Ana.
“People were spotting him in front of the painting and taking pictures of him,” he said.
Vargas was born and raised in Boyle Heights but moved to Santa Ana after he began working as an admissions counselor at Laguna College of Art and Design, where he also received a Master of Fine Arts in painting and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration. Now the assistant director of admissions, Vargas is passionate about creating connections between Orange County’s major arts institutions to better provide resources to young artists.
He admits that artists can sometimes feel disconnected in Orange County, but exhibits like “OC Made” make him hopeful that a local arts scene and identity will continue to grow organically.
“Having been in this show, a lot of us followed each other on social media, a lot of us plan to visit each other's studios,” he said. “I said to more than one person at the opening, ‘Hey, come visit my studio in Santa Ana. I'll come visit yours. Let’s set something up."
Jaime Zacarias, Second Place ‘Viva La Lucha’ (2025), acrylic, wood panels
“Germs” was the nickname that Zacarias earned as a skater in his 20s, a street name he has carried throughout his art career, a natural tie-in to his fondness for incorporating tentacles and amoeba shapes into his lowbrow surrealism and street art paintings.
“I wanted to create my own whimsical kinda reality, like my own little world,” he said.
His character-based work is influenced by the religious symbolism from his Catholic upbringing and the baseball comic cards that he and his brother used to collect. After establishing a central figure, he continues adding complexity to the paintings, “characters within the characters” and hidden references.
His three-panel piece “Viva La Lucha” won second place at “OC Made.” Each panel features a vivid, fantastical character framed by geometric and tentacle-like shapes, with splotches and drips of paint as a background. Throughout are humorous references to Chicano culture, including nopales (cactus), beans, a luchador mask, and phrases like “Caca Cola” and “Queso Pluma.”
Zacarias works intuitively, allowing his current state of mind to determine what he paints, whether it’s thoughts on politics or pop culture, tapping into a spontaneity he compares to jazz improvisation.
“I feel like it's like a cacophony of just a bunch of stuff happening within the timeline of when I did the painting,” he said. “It's like whatever was affecting me that day was kinda replicated or all the energy was exhausted into the painting.”
Zacarias previously had an early career retrospective at the Fullerton Museum Center, and a residency at Muzeo Museum and Cultural Center, and his work has appeared across public murals in Southern California and international institutions like France's Musee d'Aquitaine.
“Orange County is a big melting pot, and I feel like it's up there with L.A. as far as (having) a lot of creative-type people,” said the artist, who was born in south Los Angeles, and has been living in Brea for six years, with an art studio in La Habra. “It's not about being in L.A. anymore. You could pretty much make art and a living anywhere, having a following.”
Mahta Jafari, Third Place ‘Oppression’ (2024), photography
For Jafari, art is political, and her work delivers messages that come straight from her personal experiences.
“(I was) fully under oppression myself my whole life,” she said. “So I'm trying to amplify the voice of … the voiceless.”
The Iranian-born artist won third place for “Oppression,” a series of photographed self-portraits with various items wrapped around her head, including toilet paper, a dunce cap, bandages, men’s hands and a body bag. The images force viewers to think about how systems of control, like the mandatory hijab, can become normalized parts of everyday life, something that Jafari has reflected on extensively while living in Iran.
“It's not only about hijab,” she said. “It's about how the government or the regime wants to control you in every way that it can, and hijab is just one of its signs …. It represents a system of control that goes beyond your appearance and affects your identity and your behavior.”
Jafari has lived in the United States for a little over three years, and is studying graphic and interactions design at Cal State Fullerton. Although she has shown her work before in Iran, this is her first show in a museum in the United States outside of university work, and she was pleasantly surprised to be a winner. She praised the curation of “OC Made” for its thoughtful arrangement of a very wide-ranging collection, calling it both “professional” and “full of surprises.”
“I think they bring diversity into the space, like different voices and different backgrounds and perspectives … not just established artists,” she said. “I think it makes the exhibition more dynamic because you will see a wider range of ideas and approaches, which makes the experience richer for the audience.”
Jafari believes that “OC Made” is already creating real opportunities for artists.
“This exhibition and the award came from an open call,” she said.” And it directly allowed my work to be seen, discussed and recognized. It actually encouraged me to do more 'cause I just realized that my efforts are going to be seen. It’s very, very important for an artist to be seen and to have a platform to represent themselves.”
‘OC Made’
When: Through Aug. 1; gallery hours are noon–4 p.m. Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays; noon–8:30 p.m. Thursdays; noon–6 p.m. Fridays. First Fridays: Noon–9:30 p.m. with free admission from 4–9:30 p.m.
Where: Fullerton Museum Center, 301 N. Pomona Ave., Fullerton
Cost: $10 adults, $5 children (ages 6–18), free for children 5 and younger
Information: 714-519-4461 or fullertonmuseum.com
