Manuela Gonzalez

As an active observer, I like to imagine spaces where my self and my history reflect and interconnect. I reflect on liminal spaces where my childhood home in Venezuela engulfs the background of everything I see in front of me — a lush, tropical sphere, with vibrant hues, and variating shades of green. A bubble in time where the brown body is exalted in a way that shuns fetishization, and embraces itself via its own lens. Somewhere in which I retain control, and I alone am the master of my perception. My ethnic roots are politicized, and my body may be also, but when I am at the helm of creating, all politicization is through my own hands and my own eyes. What do I want to say with my art? A celebration of the intersectional feminine — of not shying away from those aesthetics that make me, me. A cultural resurgence born from a lifetime of change and enculturation. A body with boundaries placed on it making room for growth, despite outward pressure. I want to elevate beauty, coordinate with nature, and take up space proudly, and with gusto.