After walking through the Museum of Latin American Art and viewing her life’s work, 59-year-old Yolanda González said she could still smell the oil paint from the first artwork she created at 8 years old.
The “Metamorphosis: The Evolution Of Visions And Dreams” exhibit spans four decades of González’s artwork, including woodblock prints, paintings and sculptures. Walking through it, viewers can notice the gradual yet dramatic changes in González’s artistry.
“I’m a bit taken aback to see the 40 years that I’ve worked and to see them represented in front of me, because I have created and created and created because it is my love. It’s my soul,” González said. “These are my children. I never had children, but these are the creations that I gave birth to. And so it is with great honor, and great respect, that I walk among these rooms and see the works of art that I’ve created.”
González’s love of art has taken her across the globe. She has traveled to create art in Russia, Japan, Scotland, Spain and Italy—drawing inspiration from the cultures and people she met along the way. Her work often fuses Chicana art with Japanese aesthetics and German Expressionism.
“I allowed myself to absorb anything I could through those relationships with other artists, with the particular country I was visiting, with their traditions, with their energy,” González said. “And you could see the changes that the artwork went through from when I was rather young to now; and the metamorphosis, so to speak, of who I am now.”
Upon entering the exhibit, immediately to the left viewers can see González’s “Monster” series, an experimentation of the grotesque. The black and white woodblock prints were created in 1993, during González’s time as a young resident artist in Ginza, Japan. The monochromatic prints in the series depict unsettling faces meant to represent González’s inner demons.
“I wanted to address the topic of the grotesque, because we as a society always have a definition of what beauty is. And what is beauty? Beauty is different things to different people,” González said. “So I wanted to put a face on the monsters in my psyche, whatever those were, those thoughts, and to then have a relationship with the visual of the monster and to see their beauty.”
When González came home from Japan, she was mourning the loss of her friend and fellow artist, Cella Coffin. Inspired both by her grief and the black and white prints she observed in Japan, González began removing the color from her art work.
Some of these black and white paintings from decades ago are now hung on the walls of MOLAA as part of “Metamorphosis: The Evolution Of Visions And Dreams.”
“I wanted to see what would happen with Chicano art if you took the color away, because Chicano art is so colorful. It’s such a huge base of who we are and what we express,” González said.
In comparison to her early monochromatic prints and paintings, her more recent paintings are bursting with hues. Walking into the second gallery of the exhibit, viewers’ eyes are drawn to a red-patterned wall covered in vibrant paintings which depict women who have supported González throughout her career.
In her aptly-named 2013 series “Sueños” (which roughly translates to “Dreams” in English”), González created vivid and otherworldly portraits, with faces hidden in the background, distorted or floating.
One of these dream-like pieces will be staying with MOLAA after the conclusion of the exhibit. “Sueño de la Pintora” (translated to “The Dream of the Painter”) has been purchased by MOLAA to add to its permanent collection. The acrylic painting depicts two women sitting across from each other, while a third disembodied female face seemingly melds into the foreground. In the background a ladder is set against a window, both of which fade into intentional drips of paints, giving the work an illusory effect.
“It is with great honor, and great respect, that I walk among these rooms and see the works of art that I’ve created, and that we all have nurtured in each other, because I’ve created these pieces with the influence of family, of friends, of community,” González said. “So this is my exhibition, but this is the community’s exhibition. It reflects love. It reflects community. It reflects family. It reflects the support of a woman who believed as a little girl that her life should be spectacular.”
“Metamorphosis: The Evolution Of Visions And Dreams” will be on display at MOLAA until July 30. MOLAA is located at 628 Alamitos Ave. and open Wednesdays through Sundays, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. General admission is $15, but admission is free on Sundays.
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