Curatorial Statement
A Living Dialogue Between Two Art Forms
Jazz and visual art are not parallel traditions. They are the same impulse — improvised, communal, responsive to the moment, and rooted in the stories of people who made beauty out of circumstance. The Arts Pavilion at the Central Avenue Jazz Festival was built on that premise, and La Mancha Gallery has curated it with that conviction for eleven consecutive years.
Central Avenue is not simply a location — it is a living archive. Charlie Parker played here. Duke Ellington played here. Billie Holiday sang into rooms that trembled with possibility. The festival, founded in 1995 and presented in partnership with the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, was built to honor that history and insist that it remain alive. The Arts Pavilion extends that mission into the visual realm — creating a space where painting, photography, and installation do not merely accompany jazz but enter into genuine dialogue with it.
Each edition of the Pavilion is developed through an iterative curatorial process — structured, responsive, and refined in direct conversation with the artists and the community it serves. What began as a curated exhibition space has grown, year over year, into a multi-layered program encompassing live art demonstrations, interactive workshops, youth partnerships, and retrospective exhibitions. The 2025 edition, anchored in the festival's 30th anniversary, represents that process at full maturity.
"The Arts Pavilion has transformed the festival into a dialogue between jazz and visual art. This 30th anniversary honors how both mediums uplift community and creativity."
— Omar Holguin, Curator & Founder, La Mancha Gallery
Exhibition Details
2025 Arts Pavilion at a Glance
Event
30th Annual Central Avenue Jazz Festival
Date & Time
Saturday, September 20, 2025
11:00 AM – 7:00 PM
Location
Central Avenue between MLK Blvd. & Vernon Ave.
Los Angeles, CA
Admission
Free — Presented in partnership with the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs
Pavilion Year
11th Annual Arts Pavilion
Curated by La Mancha Gallery
Artists Featured
7 Featured Artists across photography, portraiture, muralism & multidisciplinary installation
Program Highlights
What the 2025 Pavilion Delivers
Retrospective Exhibition
Curated exhibitions celebrating a decade of artistic contributions to the Pavilion — a milestone survey of visual work produced in conversation with jazz.
Live Art Demonstrations
Artists paint and create in real time in direct response to live jazz performances — making the improvisational exchange between both art forms visible and immediate.
Interactive Workshops
Hands-on programming for all ages blending visual creativity with music appreciation — designed to engage families, students, and first-time gallery visitors alike.
Community Partnerships
Deepened collaborations with local schools and arts organizations across Los Angeles — extending the Pavilion's reach into the next generation of artists and audiences.
2025 Arts Pavilion
Featured Artists
Seven artists whose practices span photography, portraiture, muralism, and multidisciplinary installation — united by a commitment to cultural memory, community, and emotional truth.
Photography
Jimmy Velarde
A twelve-time Emmy Award recipient, Velarde works at the intersection of music and visual documentation. His black-and-white photography captures blues and jazz legends with a rawness and intimacy that feels less like portraiture and more like testimony — images that don't simply depict musicians but seem to carry the sound within them.
Portraiture
Mohammed Mubarak
Mubarak centers his practice on portraiture as an act of historical affirmation — creating powerful works that honor Black history and insist on the dignity of its subjects. His presence in the Pavilion grounds the exhibition in one of jazz's deepest and most essential cultural inheritances.
Painting
Kenneth Gatewood
Gatewood's work offers a warm and nostalgic register — imagery that recalls the textures of childhood innocence and the domestic intimacy of everyday life. His paintings remind us that jazz, for all its sophistication, was also the music that filled living rooms, front porches, and schoolyards.
Contemporary Art
LP Aekili Ross — LPAE38
LPAE38 brings an energy that has earned admiration well beyond gallery walls — works celebrated by a devoted following that includes prominent figures in entertainment and culture. His practice pulses with contemporary urgency while remaining deeply rooted in craft and conceptual integrity.
Multidisciplinary
Skira Martinez
Martinez works fluidly across disciplines — wearable art, installation, object-making — creating a body of work that refuses easy categorization. Her multidisciplinary practice mirrors jazz's own resistance to being confined within a single form, expanding the boundaries of what art in a festival environment can be.
Muralism & Urban Art
EnkOne
EnkOne brings the street into the gallery. Known for landmark works including the Crenshaw Mural of African-American Progress, his practice is rooted in the preservation of urban culture — the visual language of Los Angeles communities that have long expressed themselves in public, for everyone. His work belongs on Central Avenue.
Painting & Mixed Media
Kevin T. Williams
Williams synthesizes African, Native American, and musical traditions into work that is visually striking and culturally complex. His paintings speak across histories, finding resonance in the layered cultural landscape that Central Avenue itself has always represented — a place where many stories share the same ground.
