One of the artists that caught my attention during the in-class presentations is Diane Gamboa. Gamboa has been producing, exhibiting, and curating art in Southern California for more than two decades. Among all of her accolades, one of her most outstanding achievements is the California Community Foundation Individual Artist Grant. The latter not only speaks volumes on the creative’s success in the field, but also, it underlines the fact that Gamboa has been one of the most active cultural producers within the domain of Chicana art and within the city of Los Angeles.
I gravitated towards artist Diane Gamboa not only because I admire her art, but also because of the influence the punk rock scene has had on her work. During the ’80s, Gamboa made her presence known in the punk rock scene of East Los Angeles, and the punk aesthetic turned out to be one of the factors that characterized the beings within her work. Many of the figures are covered in tattoos, clearly demonstrating a touch of the artist’s avant-garde. A second thing that I appreciate from the artist’s artwork is her inclination to include fictional places that challenge the status quo. For instance, a lot of Gamboa’s artwork is anti-sexist, anti-hetero-normative, and anti-racist. By blurring the line of gender and gender tendencies, she underlines the importance of intersectionality within the Latina/o community. In addition, my favorite series by her is Alien Invasion: Queendom Come (2006-2012). Within this series, Gamboa challenges the society-embedded association between the term “alien” and Mexicans. She reimagines the concept of the word “alien” in order to challenge the single-narratives that marginalize Mexicans within the United States.
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