Sylvia Gonzalez

"I draw and create from a need to express the beauty I see in the world. My first memory as a very small child was sitting at the kitchen table drawing. Throughout my life, drawing, printmaking, and painting have enabled me to experiment with and learn how to layer color, images, and compositions unique to my own vision."

Sylvia Gonzalez is a colorist, and her compositions, whether done strictly with pastel or combinations of pastel and monotype, are about layering color and imagery. Gonzalez enjoys the monotype process because of its experimental and accidental nature. Starting a piece not having any idea how it is going to turn out makes the art process so much more fun and allows the work to have its own life.

Gonzalez’s work is a combination of multilayered monotypes done with lithography and various monotype techniques and pastel drawings. The multiple layers of imagery and color fields in the printmaking process unify to create a primarily monochromatic background on which she draws with pastel. The realistic pastel drawings are done from various photographs and observation of birds and animals.

Sylvia Gonzalez has a BFA from Ball State University with a specialty in drawing and printmaking. After college, she studied in Paris with her uncle, master serigrapher Wilfredo Arcay. After taking monotype workshops at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, studying with Claudia Bernardi at Kala Art Institute, and taking more printmaking classes at community colleges, she got her own etching press and further developed her process.