Diane Gamboa

Diane Gamboa (born 1957) has been producing, exhibiting and curating visual art in Southern California since the 1980s. She has also been involved art education, ranging from after-school programs to college and university teaching. Gamboa has been "one of the most active cultural producers in the Chicana art movement in Los Angeles." She actively developed the Chicano School of Painting.

Early life and education Gamboa had been producing art most of her life. She learned early on that Los Angeles was a city that was "fragmented" and "segregated by race, class and power." and the Riverside Art Museum

Gamboa's work was included in Xican-a.o.x. Body, a heavily studied group exhibition on the experiences, contributions and collaborations of Chicano artists in contemporary culture with artworks from the 1960s to the present times. The show traveled from the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture at the Riverside Art Museum, California, to the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida.

ASCO, Punk and Paper Fashion In the early ‘80s, she photographically documented the East Los Angeles punk rock scene. From 1980 to 1987, she was a member of ASCO, a conceptual multi-media performance art group. Gamboa appeared in performances and also created costumes and makeup concepts that "shaped the group's look." Her paper fashion shows disrupted the activities of people on the street, blurring the lines between art and everyday life. Gamboa's creation of paper fashion is both the realization of childhood dreams of glamor and a commentary on the disposable nature of high fashion. In Pin Up, Gamboa explores male-female relationships through a series of ink drawings on vellum. She explores the intersection of gender in the body and the relationships between the body and the inanimate.

Gamboa's series, Alien Invasion: Queendom Come (2006-2012) is an exploration of Mexican identity in American culture. She explores the idea of "why only Mexicans are called aliens while others are called immigrants," creating drawings and paintings of blue-skinned, "Amazonian aliens." Alien Invasion invites viewers to rethink their ideas about immigrants, especially those of Latino origin.