Raul Rene Gonzalez

Raul Rene Gonzalez is a multidisciplinary artist who incorporates an astonishingly wide range of mediums and methods in his paintings, drawings, sculptures, clothing, murals, installations, live and recorded dance and other performance-based work. Largely autobiographical in nature, his work explores topics such as fatherhood, gender roles, labor, identity, pop culture, science, and abstraction.

A prolific creator who finds inspiration anywhere and everywhere, Gonzalez is known by art critics, curators, and friends alike for his unwavering energy, ambition and experimentation that has led to the creation of several hundred unique works over the past decade. He truly lives his motto: “Werk. Hustle. Sleep. Repeat.”

Gonzalez earned his M.F.A. in Art from the University of Texas at San Antonio and a B.F.A., Magna Cum Laude in Painting from the University of Houston. Raul is also an Airbnb Superhost and is the Director, Curator, and Resident Artist at Clamp Light Studios & Gallery, an artist-run space in San Antonio where the artist currently lives with his wife and two daughters.

A Houston native now based in San Antonio, Texas, Gonzalez’ experiences living in two of the biggest metropolitan cities in the country influence nearly all his bodies of work—from detailed urban landscapes that pay homage to the workers who build and maintain our cities, to large-scale duct-tape and cardboard installations, to his paintings that document key features of San Antonio’s musical history displayed permanently in San Antonio’s City Hall.

Gonzalez’s work has been exhibited and featured widely throughout Texas and the United States. Since 2012, his work has been added to permanent collections such as the National Mexican Museum of Art (Chicago), the National Hispanic Cultural Center Art Museum (Albuquerque), Benson Latin American Collection (Austin), Mexic-Arte Museum (Austin), the McNay Art Museum (San Antonio), the University of Texas at San Antonio, Capital One Financial Services (Plano and San Antonio), the City of San Antonio, The Woodlands High School Art Trust, Artes de la Rosa (Fort Worth), the Whataburger Museum of Art, and The San Antonio Art League & Museum.

Gonzalez has been featured by Glasstire, Southwest Contemporary Vol. 5: Collectivity & Collaboration, Create! Magazine, The San Antonio Express News, La Prensa Texas, Spectrum News, The SA Current, The Austin Chronicle, Whataburger, and the upcoming New American Paintings No. 162: West Issue.

Gonzalez has been awarded artist grants from the Luminaria Artist Foundation, Sustainable Arts Foundation, the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, Dave Bown Projects, and the Surdna Foundation. In 2021 he was selected as San Antonio Museum of Art’s inaugural Artist-in-Residence and was nominated and selected as San Antonio Art League & Museum’s 2021 Artist of the Year.

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