Actual Size
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Space 4 Art Presents Actual Size
Curated by Lara Bullock
SAN DIEGO, CA — Space 4 Art is pleased to present Actual Size, a group exhibition curated by Lara Bullock, Ph.D., and featuring the work of Space 4 Art resident artists Andrew Alcasid, Diana Benavídez, Nick Lesley, and May-ling Martinez, and former Space 4 Art resident and local photographer Aldo Cervantes. The exhibition opens with a public reception on Saturday, October 10, 2026, from 4 to 7 p.m. and remains on view through November 7, 2026, at Art Produce Gallery.
The final exhibition in Space 4 Art's series of seven exhibitions produced through the Prebys Arts Ecosystem grant, Actual Size turns its attention toward the human-scale: the intimate, ordinary, and lived experiences that shape how we understand ourselves and the world around us.
We take for granted that the words “actual size” have a factual basis, despite the suspension of disbelief that occurs when they accompany an illustrative representation. Life is packaged, represented, and mediated. This “spectacle” that once provoked alarm and inspired artistic revolt in the 1960s has become scarcely remarkable today.
Actual Size considers what happens when we return our attention to the scale of human experience. The exhibition creates space to meaningfully and slowly consider the everyday realities that affect our lives and the power we retain as individuals to bear witness, to pay attention, and to be moved to action.
This proposition feels particularly urgent at a moment when so many forces— political, technological, environmental, and social —appear to happen despite us rather than for us.
“The artists in this exhibition do not retreat from these realities,” Bullock said. “Instead, they return us to the places where life is lived: ordinary objects, familiar rituals, the built environment, and the body itself.”
There is, Bullock suggests, a boldness in this return to the immediate and the tangible.
“The exhibition does not promise an uncomplicated feeling of hope,” Bullock said. “Instead, it asks viewers to be present— to witness, observe, and simply be.”
In a culture increasingly shaped by spectacle, speed, mediation, and scale, Actual Size proposes that attention itself is an act of significance.
By focusing on the intimate, the local, and the lived, the exhibition invites viewers to consider how individual experience can foster connection, empathy, and a renewed sense of agency. If spectacle encourages us to look everywhere at once, the artists in Actual Size ask us to look closely instead.
Meaning begins at the scale of human experience.
Exhibition Details
Title: Actual Size
Curated by: Lara Bullock
Presented by: Space 4 Art
Venue: Art Produce Gallery, 3139 University Ave., San Diego
Opening Reception: October 10 | 4-7 p.m.
Sip & Learn: October 23 | 5-8 p.m. (part of IDEA Week)
Sound Bath with May-ling Martinez: November 7 | 4-5 p.m.
Closing Reception: November 7 | 5-7 p.m.
Exhibition Dates: October 10-November 7, 2026
Gallery Hours: Fridays 1-7 p.m. and by appointment
All events are free and open to the public. For more information, visit Space 4 Art's website (www.sdspace4art.org) or follow @space4artsd on social media.
About the Curator
Lara Bullock, Ph.D., is a curator and scholar whose work explores contemporary art, culture, and the ways artists engage with the social , psychological, and material conditions of everyday life. Through her curatorial practice, Bullock brings together artists whose work encourages close observation and consideration of the spaces, objects, and experiences that shape our understanding of the world.
About Space 4 Art
Space 4 Art is a San Diego-based nonprofit arts organization dedicated to supporting artists and strengthening the region’s cultural ecosystem by providing access to affordable creative spaces, artist opportunities, exhibitions, public programming, and community engagement.
