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A detail from Longoria's painting "Se Comen los Corazones"

art work is equally at home on the street, or in an art gallery. Longoria, who currently has a show of his paintings up at Hopkins Center for the Arts, proudly describes himself as a Chicano street artist:

Longoria is originally from Texas, but worked for many years in both Los Angeles and in Chicago before moving to Minnesota. Along with his wife, Longoria runs the organization "Mentoring Peace Through Art." He spends his summers working with youth to paint murals on buildings in troubled parts of Minneapolis, in an attempt to prevent graffiti tags and create an inhospitable environment for gangs. And over the years he's developed a very thoughtful approach to his work:

The works on the wall at Hopkins Center for the Arts are in a sense Longoria's drafts for future murals - he regularly tests out ideas and images on canvas in his studio before taking them out to a city street.

Longoria runs his hands over the canvas of a work at Hopkins Center for the Arts

Longoria paints with an eye to how his work appear viewed from different angles, at different speeds (i.e. in a car versus walking), and from different vistas. He purposely paints images down low on the mural that will catch the eyes of toddlers, who may be looking at the wall more closely than their parents.

"I don't paint for my contemporaries - I paint for today's youth," says Longoria. "Murals are primal - they go back to cave paintings. Today's cave is the laptop computer."

That's why, Longoria says, he often uses bold bright colors that are more likely to be found in the digital world than the natural one.

While Longoria paints for future audiences, he draws inspiration from his past. Many of his works refer to his youth working on his grandfather's Texas farm. A series of painted shovels adorn the walls, referring to a system his grandfather started with neighboring farmers to brand their shovels so that farm hands wouldn't walk off with them.

Upon remarking that his works reminded me of some of Picasso's early line drawings, Longoria points to the shared history of Spain with Mexico

Longoria bemoans the lack of real attention paid to Chicano artists, or recognition for Chicano art as its own distinct tradition. But there are signs, at least locally, that this might be changing. Longoria recently received a "Fine Arts" fellowship from the Bush Foundation. He had been a candidate in both the fine arts and native/traditional arts categories. His wife Connie Longoria Fullmer says they couldn't be happier with the category he ended up in, stating "in the Fine Art category they're not looking at the color of his skin, just the quality of his work."

through February 27. The exhibition includes work by two of his Chicago colleagues, Roberto Valdez and Salvador Vega. You can see images of Longoria's murals 

From mural to canvas: the art of Jimmy Longoria

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