As a research-based artist, Evelyn Gonzalez’s work is a deep reflection of her independent studies in the fields of New Materialism, Feminist Theory, Queer and Trans Theory, and Psychoanalytic Theory. Her entry point into philosophical discourse is through a history of ceramic traditions. In this case, Gonzalez creates her series Of Bodies Straining to See using two ancient materials and methods—Greek Ostraka and Maya Blue. Feature writer Jeanne Vaccaro reflects on Gonzalez’s performance of self and her propositions regarding clay and its relationship to queer-trans-feminist theories.

This hand-bound, limited-edition book and corresponding exhibition is the second in a series dedicated to emerging artists. It is granted through the Southwest School of Art as the Edith McAllister Prize in celebration of the college’s first graduating BFA class.

While making formal propositions about the material history of clay, dirt, and rot, Gonzalez is also fleshing out the parallels between bodies of thought and disciplinary histories. Her preoccupation with sedimentation and embodiment allows for an amplification of these felt categories—observing the contact and potential tensions of material thought colliding. Thinking with the affective tonalities of a fragile material property, Gonzalez stages a relationship between clay degrading into dust particles and queer-trans-feminist theories of the body breaking down and transforming generationally… 
—Jeanne Vaccaro, Excerpt of "A Body of Work: Evelyn Gonzalez's crafted performance of self"

About the Artist

Evelyn Gonzalez is an artist whose practice pairs historical craft research with queer, trans, and feminist theories of materiality and embodiment. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Southwest School of Art in San Antonio, TX, and is the recipient of the Edith McAllister Award. Gonzalez has exhibited at Texas Contemporary in Houston, TX, and in the city-wide exhibition Common Currents in San Antonio. 

About the Writer

Jeanne Vaccaro is a writer, curator, and teacher whose work explores the intersection of aesthetics and the history and theory of trans and queer life. Her book in process, Handmade: Feelings and Textures of Transgender, considers the felt labor of making identity and was awarded the Arts Writers Grant by Creative Capital and the Andy Warhol Foundation. Vaccaro is a 2017-19 Mellon postdoctoral fellow in feminist arts and sciences at UC Davis. She received her Ph.D. in Performance Studies at New York University and held postdoctoral fellowships in Gender Studies and the Kinsey Institute archives at Indiana University (2014-17) and in Sexuality Studies at the University of Pennsylvania (2012-14).

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