By Oscar Rodriguez Zapata
Oscar Rodriguez Zapata began photographing murals of La Virgencita as early as 2012, using his iPhone to document these vibrant artworks whenever he encountered them. Initially, he shared these photos on his personal Instagram purely out of interest. However, by 2017, as these murals began to disappear due to gentrification and other factors, Oscar felt a growing urgency to preserve their cultural significance. This inspired him to create a dedicated Virgencita Instagram page to both document these murals and highlight their artistic and cultural importance. Beyond his work with documenting Virgencita murals, Oscar is a dedicated street and portrait photographer, passionate about capturing the essence of his community and surroundings. His first solo exhibition, titled Gente de Los Angeles, featured portraits of the individuals that make up Los Angeles and was displayed at Art Space HP in Huntington Park from late 2023 to early 2024. Oscar’s photography has been published in the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and in the college textbook Religion Matters (Second Edition) by Stephen Prothero.
Please visit La Plaza de Cultura y Artes in Los Ángeles starting September 14th, 2024 to check out some of Oscar Rodriguez Zapata’s photographs in exhibition:
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