‘Day Jobs’ explores impact of necessary employment on artists

“Legal Tender,” the epic mixed media work by Long Beach artist Narsiso Martinez, is art you’ll be thinking about days later. 

The piece, created in 2022, is on view as part of “Day Jobs,” the group exhibition at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University examining the impact that needing outside work to survive has on an artist’s creative practice. Taking up its own wall, the 23-by-7 foot composition of “Legal Tender” is meant to evoke paper money. But instead of the white Founding Fathers we’re used to seeing on bills, it features images of farmworkers surrounding a central portrait of Latin female figure Santa Maria. 

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