Featured Artist

Marcelina Gonzales – Brownsville, TX
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Marcelina Gonzales received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas at Brownsville in 2013. Having been born and raised along the Mexican American border her entire life, Gonzales, through her work, seeks to break the preconception of what it means to be a Latina female. Gonzales’ work has been exhibited repeatedly throughout Texas to include such galleries such as the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art, Freight Gallery in San Antonio, Fort Worth’s Fort Works Art, the El Paso International Museum of Art, one of Texas’ oldest, artist run, cooperative gallieries, 500X Gallery. In addition, she has also exhibited out of state and internationally at galleries such as the M. Rosetta Hunter Gallery in Seattle Washington, the Los Angeles Center for Digital Arts, NX2 Berlin Gallery, Vancouver, BC, and most recently, Zayed University in Dubai.

Women are not things.

This body of work seeks to reclaim every cat call, tongue slurp, aroused grunt, and unsolicited grab spewed into existence then thrown onto another human. Whether deliberately exaggerated, androgynous, or representative, the female narrative lies predominantly at the forefront as personal histories of abuse are visually narrated. Accounts of misogynistic behaviors will be opposed with playfully sarcastic humor and hyperbole while questioning whether pure and authentic comraderies can exist amongst unfamiliar individuals, whether fleeting or longstanding, without anxieties of ulterior motives. Presented as objectified beings through themes of cynical submission then self-realization and courageous independence, this work employs itself to challenge and obliterate the expected androcentric social, political, economic, religious, and sexual role of a female living in today’s America.