GILDALORENA

Gildalorena Martínez was born in Mexico City and lived in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, for more than 20 years. She graduated from the Metropolitan Autonomous University with a Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Communication Design. She also served as a professor at four universities in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Ciudad Juárez.

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Her lifelong passion has been painting — she completed her first oil painting at the age of seven. As an artist, she has received international awards and presented 15 solo exhibitions and 31 group exhibitions in Mexico, the United States, and Cuba. Among her notable projects is City of Sand and Blood, a series of more than 30 artworks in which she captured the fear, bloodshed, and loss that she and the other citizens of Ciudad Juárez experienced during the so-called war on drugs. Women in all their facets — contemplative, vain, independent; daughter, mother, grandmother — are recurring themes in her work.

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She has also distinguished herself as an art teacher. She founded a children’s art workshop in Ciudad Juárez and organized 10 exhibitions for her students. She currently lives in the Austin area to be close to her family. She continues to teach art and explore new directions in her work. In December 2019, she presented her most recent exhibition, Visions of Mexico, at the Consulate General of Mexico in Austin.