San Diego Visual Arts Network presents SD Art Prize 2026 Soft Power: On Color, Time, and Resistance: Danielle Dean, Ingrid Hernández, Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio.

 by Patricia Frischer

Lara Bullock, Ph.D introduces the exhibition to the docents of OMA

San Diego Visual Arts Network was set up to encourage artists to connect, create and shine. The San Diego Art Prize is an initiative that highlights the excellence of visual artists in our region and elevates their work to a wider audience  Over the years, the collection of San Diego Art Prize recipients has been a continual source of inspiration as it celebrates the artists shaping our future. Good art has the power to quiet personal worries and shifts how we see the world. That transformative quality is at the heart of everything we do.

The San Diego Art Prize is not something artists “win.” It is a recognition received after a sustained career in the arts, ideally when an artist is at the top of their game. Selectors focus on work completed within the past three years, and our long-term intention is to eventually recognize all deserving local artists. The San Diego Art Prize turns local talent into lasting impact.

In the SD Art Prize 2026 SDVAN  Soft Power: On Color, Time, and Resistance: Danielle Dean, Ingrid Hernández, Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio curated by Lara Bullock, Ph.D continues to discover the artists defining San Diego now. This year’s recipients bring a new dimension to the Art Prize. For the first time, all three artists are women with young children—an extraordinary reminder of the pressures artists balance while producing exceptional work. Every artist is unique, and presenting them together creates both an opportunity and a challenge that our curators have meet with intelligence and care this and  every year. Exhibiting at the Oceanside Museum of art allowed us to continually expand and diversify our audience. We are one creative community with bold art and big ideas.

At the Oceanside Museum of Art, this year’s Art Prize presentation will include a panel discussion, offering audiences direct insight into the artists’ practices. We have also developed educational lesson plans for distribution at the museum and online created by Brenda Andrews. The catalog designed by Mark Murphy of Murphy Designs both hard copy with an online version will link to a video.  We firmly believe that Art connects us and we are proud that SDVAN helps makes that happen. That is our legacy.

Danielle A. Dean - clip from film White

Danielle A. Dean uses resources like archives, videos, performances, community projects, sculptures, and drawings to explore how ideas and images get repeated and recycled in ways that help keep global capitalism going. She works with different types of media and often involves other people in her projects to take a closer look at the cracks and problems in this system that seems like it’s stuck in a loop. In this video work she takes her inspiration from a British industry campaign that features cows as one of economic drivers post WWII. In this work, an imaged scene is drenched in white over a period of time. The white symbolic of not only milk but the whiteness of the power in the world.  Dean received an MFA from California Institute of the Arts and is an alumna of the Whitney Independent Study Program. Danielle Dean is currently an associate professor or art at UCSD. 

Danielle A. Dean - clip from film White

Danielle A. Dean - clip from film White

Danielle A. Dean - clip from film White

Actual vintage promotion card for British Industries

Danielle A. Dean - clip from film White

Ingrid Hernández, from Tijuana, Mexico, explores how cities change by looking at how people relate to their homes. With a background in both sociology and visual art, she focuses on communities built by migrants, deportees, and people who’ve been displaced, especially near the US-Mexico border. She often depicts discarded materials from the U.S. and local Mexican maquiladoras in her work. Her projects usually involve long-term collaborations, including interviews, photography, and exploring shared memories. Ingrid Hernández is co-founder of Relaciones Inesperadas, a teaching space for the development of contemporary artistic practices and the fostering of critical dialogue in the arts established in Tijuana.

Ingrid Hernández

Ingrid Hernández

Ingrid Hernández

Ingrid Hernández

Ingrid Hernández

Ingrid Hernández

Ingrid Hernández

Ingrid Hernández

Ingrid Hernández

Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio explores the world on a most personal scale. She confronts how caregiving for loved ones can displace time and reshape perception. The work is quiet, contemplative with an understanding of cosmic astrophysics. She is creating architecture on an atmospheric, emotional level with installations of drawing and painting that gives us a glimpse of an always changing universe of challenges. She received her MFA from the New York Academy of Art and BA in art history and visual arts at the University of San Diego. Ortiz-Rubio currently teaches drawing and painting at University of San Diego.

Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio

Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio

Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio

Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio

Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio

Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio

Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio

Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio

Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio

Lara Bullock, Ph.D  with OMA docents

Brenda Andrews, creator of the SD Art Prize lesson plans demonstrating Head in the Clouds Brain Storm  part of the WALK WITH ARTIST’S EYES Initiative

San Diego Visual Arts Network presents SD Art Prize 2026
Soft Power: On Color, Time, and Resistance: Danielle Dean, Ingrid Hernández, Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio. 
Curated by Lara Bullock, Ph.D.
Opening reception :Sat. Sept 19 from 5 to 7 pm Buy tickets here.
Soft Power in Practice: A Conversation with the 2026 San Diego Art Prize Recipients is on Sun Sept 27th from 2 to 4 pm, Buy tickes here.

Oceanside Museum of Art
On view until January 17, 2027
704 Pier View Way, Oceanside, CA 92054 (760) 435-3720
Hours: Wednesday to  Sunday 11 to 5. Extended Hours on First Fridays 11 to 8
OMA Museum is open FREE on First Fridays 5 - 8 and First Sundays 11 - 5 of every month.