Raul Manzano Honored at College of the Sequoias Human Rights Art Exhibition
(MANHATTAN, NY — March 5, 2025) Each year, College of the Sequoias hosts a Human Rights Art Exhibition which features art pieces that, while varied in mediums and styles, share a common theme: “the intersection of art, human rights, social justice and environmental issues.” The college, located in Visalia, California, is currently displaying Empire State University faculty member Raul Manzano’s piece “Grasping for Freedom, Grasping for Hope.” The painting, which depicts a wide-eyed Statue of Liberty peering over a wall that several hands are desperately trying to grasp the top of, won a Merit Award just over a week into being displayed as part of the competitive, international exhibition. College of the Sequoia’s 2025 Human Rights Arts Exhibition runs from January 28 to March 7.
Featured artist Manzano, who is currently a visiting assistant professor at Empire State University, has long been a member of its community with his first experience at the university dating back to 2003.
Manzano: I’ve been with the university for about twenty years now—I was a student here first; I did my master’s in 2005. After that, I began working for the college, tutoring one student at a time, eventually began doing study groups, and later was hired as a part-time mentor. I have been with the Arts Department since then.
Irigoyen: Can you tell us a bit about your upbringing?
Manzano: That’s an interesting question… everybody asks me that. I was born in Colombia and came to America in 1980, and I, like many immigrants, began working different types of jobs, later on went to school, and began the process of adjusting to my life [here]. I didn’t speak the language at the time… it took a good two years to begin to understand [English]. It takes longer than that for some of us.
Irigoyen: Can you tell us about your art, thematically speaking?
He shifts in his chair and laughs, both of us acknowledging with apologetic smiles the vastness of my question and the challenge of providing a condensed answer.
Manzano: My artistic career sort of began with the teachings of my mother. I guess that’s how I got my motivation for art—as part of a heritage. One of those things that’s said—are artists born or made? I’m not quite sure where I fit in there, but I recall I had that passion for art since a very early age.
He looks up and away from his screen, calling on memory as he continues to talk me through his trajectory.
Manzano: I went to art school, and that’s how I initiated myself in the arts. Why I picked those particular topics to paint is, first of all, living in Colombia. [It] was a difficult time before we came here because of the political situations that were happening in my country. Unrest—the guerrillas were coming into the picture in the late 1970s, early 80s…when I came to America, I saw similar situations that were happening in my country that [also] were happening here; corruption and discrimination, particularly, and [the violation of] human rights. It prompted me to look through these frames that eventually developed later in my work.
Now, he is talking about the Statue of Liberty—the identifying seal that brands Manzano’s work ever since the end of his time as an undergraduate student. It serves as a gateway into the socio-cultural and political messages in his work.
Irigoyen: Is there anything else that you feel contributed to your passion for putting your art in conversation with these topics?
Manzano: Certainly, being a Latino has a lot to do with it because we see what’s happening to our people nowadays… That obviously has an impact on me because that’s part of where I am from, the people that I can relate to, and that motivates me to create this type of work—work that will generate awareness, if you will, for the viewer. What the Statue of Liberty represents to many of us is a symbol of freedom and hope… many migrants, not necessarily one group but around the world, see the image of the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of freedom—one of the reasons they might choose to come to the United States.
Irigoyen: Can you describe your work from a technical standpoint?
Manzano: Let’s talk about the creative process, because that’s basically the starting point. I begin by developing a concept or an idea through what is called thumbnail sketches—small sketches usually in my sketchbook, or sometimes I do it on Post-its—this is where I begin everything.
He moves onto the topic of materials, naming oil paint on canvas as his medium of preference. While acrylic paints are fast-drying, oil paint affords the artist time to work slowly, which is what Manzano prefers, as he can sometimes take several weeks and up to a month—or longer—to complete a painting.
Manzano: I also look at other artists, see what they have done so I don’t repeat the same concept that another artist might have done. It’s important to look at the work of other people as well.
Irigoyen: So, can you tell us about this award you just received?
Manzano: It’s what is called a Merit Award, given to either two or three artists. I was thrilled—it’s an honor for me to receive this. As you said, it’s a recognition of my work and I couldn’t be more pleased. And I appreciate the fact that they not only selected my work for the show, but later got notice that I’d receive this Merit Award. It’s very rewarding, personally. It’s part of the work that I have been doing over the years, and I guess it reflects now more than ever before.
Irigoyen: Last question is: is there a key message you want your audience to take away from looking at your pieces?
Manzano: The message I want to convey, more than anything else, is about inequalities. Discrimination. That’s where my focus is, for everybody to have an opportunity to contribute to society by the opportunities that are given to them as well as to everybody else.
For a moment, we return to the painting featured in the Human Rights Art Exhibition at College of the Sequoias.
Manzano: What inspired me to do this painting is the desperate attempt by migrants who are seeking a better life in the United States. It reflects the political climate of the anti-immigration policies of our current President.
Manzano: Color and aerial perspective. That’s what I refer to as two different points of view. In one, the hands of people from diverse backgrounds are reaching up to the Statue of Liberty for help. But on the other side, the Statue of Liberty is looking down at this group of people that are trying to climb the wall or reaching out to someone to lend them a hand. She’s looking at them with a very disconcerting expression, looking down over this wall that has been built, prompting the viewer to reflect on the current socio-cultural, racial and political affairs in a divided United States at the moment.
Irigoyen: It’s interesting that voice, whether it’s through visual art, or photography, or sculpture, or music…it can unite.
He nods.
Manzano: Art provides that moment to give us a little bit of hope in our lives from all the problems we are facing nowadays.