American Roulette: Navigating Gun Culture and Our Violent Society

Born in the Philippines, Cesar Conde is a contemporary painter and activist based in Chicago, Illinois. Growing up as an immigrant of color, Conde faced challenges that would ignite his passion to combat racism, spark activism, and inspire social justice through the visual arts. Conde studied at the Angel Academy of Art in Florence, Italy. He also studied with the French master, Patrick Betaudier in his atelier in southern France and with Ed Hinkley in Chicago.
Conde’s art in the American Roulette exhibition at ACC addresses the systemic racism and violence faced by people of color, especially at the hands of law enforcement. The Bang Bang Project is a series of large-scale photo-realistic portraits which were created in response to the 2014 protest march on Michigan Ave in Chicago after the acquittal of Michael Brown’s killer. Eighteen-year-old Michael Brown was unarmed when he was shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.

Yousif Del Valle is an artist and educator based in Round Rock, Texas. Through his sculptural works, which include miniature sets, he alters and bends the reality of events and places with elements of mythology, hearsay, or conspiracy, recreating incredible spectacles or deeply biased emotions. His work reflects on the heavy subliminal weights that seep into our decisions and emotions. Del Valle holds a BFA from Texas Christian University and an MFA from the University of Minnesota. He is a Sculpture and 3D Design professor at Austin Community College.

Del Valle’s American Roulette video installation works relay the physical and emotional transformation of places that have been subjected to the extreme violence of mass shootings. The artist creates a miniature replica of a specific site and presents it from a fixed viewpoint. During the video, the scene is altered by slowly introducing elements which lead to its destruction. Home (2025) depicts the El Paso Walmart that was the site of a mass shooting in 2019. The work draws on Del Valle’s personal connections to El Paso and experience of being in the city during the shooting.

Michelle Graves is an interdisciplinary artist based in Las Vegas, Nevada. Her research-informed work explores the existential challenges and questions regarding the unknown through various media and installation work. Graves holds a BFA from Indiana University and an MFA from Columbia College Chicago.

Graves' art in the American Roulette exhibition at ACC captures a “moment within the chaos” that embodies both the shooter and the victim, replaying the ending of a life on canvas. After finding a lack of data on mass shootings due to the 1996 Dickey Amendment which restricted funding for “gun control” research, Graves took an alternative approach to understanding the physical and psychological effects of mass shootings. A Life is a Life is a series of paint-splattered canvases accompanied by shot-through pig hearts encased in resin. The works were created by physically shooting different calibres of firearms. The installation is accompanied by two Zines that detail the impacts of limiting research funding on gun-related topics, such as mass shootings in the U.S.

Anthony Guntren is a sculpture artist and educator based in Alamosa, Colorado. His works emerge from the interplay between artistic process, creative meditation, and human interaction. Through abstract and open forms, the artist seeks to visually represent the energetic network that flows between living entities and the natural world. Guntren holds a BFA from Western State College and an MFA from Colorado State University. He is an assistant professor of art at Adams State University.

Guntren’s art in the American Roulette exhibition at ACC presents a visually striking contradiction between the right to bear arms and the American dream. Combining familiar objects with a firearm, the artist confronts the idea that a person's ability to effectively take another life is more important than another person’s pursuit of “life, liberty, and happiness.” Guntren’s cast-iron sculptures, which include thought-provoking titles, aim to set in motion deeper conversations on the complicated tensions surrounding the impacts of gun culture in American society and politics.

CJ Hungerman is an artist, muralist, and graphic designer based in Chicago, Illinois.
By rendering a harmonious balance between a melody of colors and the intermingling of odd shapes, his work represents and embraces the diversity of people residing in our communities. Hungerman holds a BFA from West Virginia University and an MFA from Northern Illinois University.

Hungerman’s art in the American Roulette exhibition at ACC addresses the psychological trauma that follows after a mass shooting through a sensory exploration of color and hidden messaging. His work includes three mixed-media panels from the We Rise series, which are colorfully riddled with symbols of death and destruction upon close inspection. His works are also considered memorials to those who have lost their lives to gun violence. No One Re-Spawns- 19 & 2 Uvalde Texas is dedicated to the victims of the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

Dominic Sansone is a Chicago-based artist and founder of the American Roulette Collective. Influenced by his time working in the aerospace industry, his work responds to the disproportionate role the Military Industrial Complex has in modern society through his large-scale installations and cast sculptures. Sansone holds a BFA from the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign and an MFA from the Herron School of Art and Design.

Sansone’s work in the American Roulette exhibition at ACC centers around the fetishization of guns in American culture. His work includes, Makes you want to run out and buy a gun, three oversized and garishly painted handguns, and Brand New God, a “preposterous” shrine dedicated to the AK-47. These artworks simulate worship or admiration of firearms in an over-the-top way to engender contemplation on how our nation elevates, markets, and protects the idea of “the gun.”

Folleh Shar Francis Tamba is a filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist with a BA in Film and Video Production from Columbia College, a BA in Justice Studies from Northeastern Illinois University, and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts and Media from Columbia College. He was born in Chicago and spent his early life in Liberia, Africa where he witnessed the country's civil war and subsequent intervention by the United States Marine Corps, inspiring him to enlist in 2003. His collection of triggered memories in combat are processed into a variety of visual formats, providing viewers a glimpse into the gruesome realities of modern warfare.

Tamba’s art in the American Roulette exhibition at ACC communicates the artist's point of view as a ground soldier in active combat through descriptive language. We are the Infantry is a text-based video that carries a poem in white on black text with no sound. The words illustrate what images can not, forcing the viewer to imagine the graphic sensations of war and the inner psyche of the artist. Two of his journals from his time in combat are on display alongside the video. Viewers are encouraged to engage with the journals which include personal essays, poems, letters, and photographs from his time in the military.

The Art Galleries (TAG) at ACC and the American Roulette Collective hosted an open call for artists residing in the Greater Austin Metropolitan Area to be featured in the larger American Roulette exhibition in gallery 4000. The artworks selected addresses the theme of firearms and/or gun violence in American society. The purpose of this call is to include the perspective of community members into the exhibition and welcome a dialogue that crosses a cultural and societal divide.