Marcelina Gonzales

Marcelina Gonzales (born 1989) is an American visual artist from Brownsville, Texas.

According to Gonzales, her work focuses on her identity as a young Chicana growing up in a neighborhood that is often marginalized and misunderstood. Therefore, artistically, Gonzales exemplifies the mingling of these Mexican and American cultures, attitudes, and traditions through an authentic Chicana point of view. She says that she turned to art as a form of therapy which allowed her to pursue empowerment in regards to her gender and cultural identity.

Career In 2020, amidst the Coronavirus outbreak, Gonzales participated in collaborative work with Fields Projects to launch an online initiative called “Corona Care+”. Field Projects is an online project space dedicated to uplifting emerging artists. Now serving as a time capsule, the initiative offered the support and advice from artists as they navigated the pandemic. and shared an oil tinted resin collage, Don’t eat pistachios in the dark, that she completed during the pandemic.

As an artist, Gonzales has exhibited her art throughout Texas, California, and New York as well as in Germany, Hungary, and Dubai. She uses her work to challenge the preconceptions of what it means to be Chicana and the social, political, economic, religious, and sexual role of women living in contemporary America. This can be seen in the GIRLS will be GIRLS: An All-Women Art Exhibition that she personally curated and in her Object collection. Particularly, in her Object collection, she strives to eliminate the androcentric expectation that is so prevalent in today’s America by redefining and reclaiming the female position in it. She has also used resin collages to create snapshots of her memories growing up in Brownsville Tiempo del Vals at Sunrise Mall in Between Two Worlds Exhibit and Valley Girl Collection. A piece that is oil tinted and resin collaged on wood that depicts a quinceñera and her court of honor. This piece can move from two dimensional to three dimensional. Let's see what that mouth can do! in GIRLS will be GIRLS: An All-Women Art Exhibition and Valley Girl collection