Gabriella Sanchez’s paintings are an exploration of color, shapes, and symbolism. A colorful mishmash of portraits, typography, and iconography, her art is meant to be both striking and thought-provoking. “In my artwork, I balance the visual pleasure and the conceptual weight,” said the Mexican-American artist in an interview with Inteligencia.
“Before, I found I was making work that I felt wasn’t for my community; it wasn’t for my family to enjoy, it was talking to the community that I wasn’t a part of,” she went on to explain. And that can be really alienating. As a whole, the art world is very alienating to specific groups of people: people of color and people who, maybe, don’t have certain levels of education. So, I like that the layered meaning [in my art] is for people who are from my own community who aren’t necessarily the art world community.”
Drawing for her mixed background, Sanchez finds a way to balance between the form and message she wishes to convey. “I always enjoyed doing paintings, but for whatever reason I wanted to do something that was totally new and at an experimental level,” she said. “I slowly realized that I could still do something that was experimental in painting through the messaging and through the way that I paint.”
Look closer. Can you decipher the message?
