Featuring works by 

Gaby Berglund Cárdenas 

Guadalupe Hernandez 

Lorena Morales 

Graciela Paz 

Co-curated by Café Con Leche students, América Benítez, Andrea Granados, Patricia Odjewuyi, Natalie Perez, and Nathalie Rodriguez under the direction of WFMA Curator Danny Bills 

Finding Your Voice is the culmination of a WFMA Community Project in collaboration with Café Con Leche founder Gonzalo Robles. Café Con Leche (link) is a local organization that champions parents seeking higher education for their children and creating a “Culture of High Expectations” at home.  

Artists were selected by a group of college-bound high school students of Café Con Leche, under the direction of WFMA curator Danny Bills. With themes that give voice to the students’ lived experiences, this exhibition reveals how art connects to and helps communicate who we are.  

Student co-curators met weekly with Bills for seven months developing themes, selecting artworks, and designing an exhibition to find and share our “Voice.”  Through the project, students gained exposure to art and culture, vocational awareness in the museum field, and experience to excel in higher education.  

Finding Your Voice invites you to celebrate and learn about Hispanic, Latino, and Chicano art alongside the young people of Café Con Leche. See how artists use visual language to share personal experiences of cultural identity that contribute to the human family. In the process, we invite you to embrace the unique elements of heritage that have shaped you. 

How to engage with this exhibition

Opening Celebration and Family Day
June 4, 1-4 PM
Visit the exhibit with the Co-Curators and the artists while enjoying Street Taco Fundraiser and Dances by Zavala.

Diving Deeper
Dive Deeper into the exhibition, Finding Your Voice: Café Con Leche Co-Curates, with the Co-Curators in a video series highlighting participating artist.
Watch Diving Deeper with Graciela Paz.
Watch Diving Deeper with Guadalupe Hernandez
Watch Diving Deeper with Gaby Berglund Cárdenas 
Watch Diving Deeper with Lorena Morales

Follow the Path
About the Café Con Leche Co-Curates project
Follow the path of young people as they gain deeper insight into their cultural heritage through firsthand engagement with artists who have a distinctly informed cultural voice.
Read Curator's Clues.

About the Artists

Gaby Berglund Cárdenas

Ecuadorian born Gaby Berglund Cárdenas has called many cities across Asia, USA, and Europe ‘home,’ travelling with her family across the globe before settling in Sweden in 2019. Cárdenas’ multidisciplinary practice is influenced by Asian philosophies. Working in various art forms, Cárdenas uses repetition in her artistic process as a meditative ritual to explore a question of uncertainty of time, space, and being. Thread, ink, fabric, and handmade paper are used in metaphorical ways. Cárdenas has exhibited her work at The Lawndale Art Center in Houston, Texas; the A.I.R. Gallery in New York; and The Hagaram Museum in Seoul, South Korea, among other venues. 

Guadalupe Hernandez

Lorena Morales

Based in Houston and born in Maracaibo, Venezuela, Lorena Morales focuses on shadow in her work. The overlapping of movement, color, and light in her works seeks to evoke energy found in new beginnings and to reveal the passing of current realties. In her work, Morales expresses both joy and nostalgia. Morales' works relate to the journey of finding her way home through recollections of familiar sounds, everyday scents, and recurring images. Morales has exhibited her work throughout Texas and in Venezuela and Germany. Her work is held in the permanent collection of the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, City of Houston’s Civic Art Collection, and the George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

Graciela Paz

Houston-based artist Graciela Paz is originally from Guatemala. She takes inspiration for her work from ‘Mother Nature,’ creating organic, abstract pieces with the use of mixed media. Her work seeks understanding of structures, systems, and micro-life in nature to increase consciousness of unseen beauty around us. Creation, constant changes, and chaos sometimes are represented to evoke a depth of feeling. Paz has taught high school art for over five years, worked as a school administrator, and recently earned her MFA with a focus on painting from Houston Baptist University.

Artwork from left to right:

Gaby Berglund Cárdenas, A WORDLESS STORY (detail), 2016, Accordion style artist’s book, mixed media (Korean paper, silk cover, etchings and woodcut cut outs); Image courtesy of the artist.

Guadalupe Hernandez, Rebeldia de Juventud (Red), 2021, Cut paper; Image courtesy of the artist.

Lorena Morales, Shelter S01, 2022, Enamel paint and oil-based markers on layered hand-cut paper; Image courtesy of the artist.

Graciela Paz, Embracing Change, 2022, Ceramics, insulating foam, acrylic paint, burlap and light; Image courtesy of the artist.