About 25 people in person and more than 15 on Zoom attended a lecture by local artist Irene Berrones-Kolb’s the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library Library Tuesday.
Berrones-Kolb was invited by Susana Gallardo, a San Jose State University sociology lecturer, to be part of the Feminist Lecture Series put on by the Women, Gender and Sexuality SJSU program.
“I found her to be an incredibly gifted friend and artist,” Gallardo said. “It's really nice for us to ask her here just to reflect a little bit on what her art means, and what it means for her to be an emerging artist.”
Berrones-Kolb is a Mexican-American visual artist from Chicago who moved to San Jose 16 years ago.
“People and faces have always been my favorite subjects,” Berrones-Kolb said.
When she was in high school, she said she discovered her passion for psychology through the college textbooks her older siblings were bringing home.
She said that many of her experiences including her friend’s father’s suicide and uncle’s psychotic break, among other experiences, led her to a career in the mental health field with a focus on art therapy.
“Art therapy is a form of therapy that uses the creative process to address personal issues and to address emotional, whatever emotional kinds of things you have going on,” Berrones-Kolb said. “The main goal is self expression. And with that being the case, there is no wrong or right way to use the art materials or to create things.”
She said working in psychiatric hospitals and residential programs dedicated to adults with severe mental illnesses was very challenging but rewarding as well.
“I’ve worked with teenagers, the elderly, people of color . . . and everyone had their unique stories and experiences, ” Berrones-Kolb said. “It was an honor hearing people's experiences.”
Her art includes themes celebrating her culture as a Mexican-American woman.
“Growing up, like a lot of people of color, I didn’t see people that look like me in mainstream media,” Berrones-Kolb said.
She started to embrace her culture when she met international students in college who helped her become proud of her identity as a woman of color.
“As a Mexican American and as a woman of color, I really began to see how I could use my art to do some important things,” Berrones-Kolb said. “Celebrate my own personal culture, as well as the cultures of other underrepresented groups, and to use my imagery to heal, inspire, and create change.”
Cynthia Krath, SJSU sociology junior who attended the event, said she realized after Berrones-Kolb’s talk how artists can show activism through their art.
“Something that I learned was that you can express any type of resilience through art,” Krath said.
Michelle Montrose, SJSU sociology junior who also attended the lecture said that Berrones-Kolb could lead more people to start being involved in the artistic field.
“It looked like her art really meant something to her,” Montrose said. “That just engages people in the art more.”
