Maria Guzmán Capron
Make it All Better

November 6–December 27, 2020

Socially distant opening: Saturday, November 21, 3–5pm
Meet at the southwest corner of 7th Avenue and Irving Street (the Fireside is back in action!)

Premiere Jr. is so dang happy to present the fifth billboard installation above 624 Irving Street, Make it All Better by Maria Guzmán Capron. For Maria, this was an opportunity to make weird art during a surreal moment. If a strangely humanoid cat creature can casually groom itself on a San Francisco billboard, truly anything we imagine is possible right now. Maria’s collage-like approach to the image of Make it All Better transforms a creature’s self care into an absurdist, magic realism PSA. Designed before the 2020 general election to suit whatever outcome might transpire, Maria’s billboard is a form of visual comfort and a call to action—to take care of ourselves and the world around us.

Maria Guzmán Capron (b. 1981 in Milan, Italy to Colombian and Peruvian parents) lives and works in Oakland, CA. She received an MFA from California College of the Arts in 2015 and her BFA from the University of Houston in 2004. Recent exhibitions include Being Human Is Hard at pt.2 Gallery, Oakland, CA; Female Trouble 2 at CULT Aimee Friberg Exhibitions, San Francisco, CA; Body Spray at Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art, Buffalo, NY; Don’t Eat Me at Deli Gallery in Brooklyn, NYC; Through Her Eye at Mana Contemporary in Chicago, IL; and Snail Shell, open this month at pt.2 Gallery, Oakland, CA. She is a cofounder and past member of CTRL+SHFT Collective, an exhibition space and 13 studios located in West Oakland operating with an emphasis on collaborating with underrepresented arts communities, including women artists, artists of color, and queer and non-binary artists. She also works as a full-time mother and part-time facilitator at NIAD Art Center, a progressive art studio helping more than 60 artists with disabilities create art.