Arthur Gonzalez

Arthur Gonzalez is a ceramic sculptor who combines clay, paint, and found objects to create detailed and complex forms that often depict the human figure. Gonzalez’s work focuses on addressing the relationship between personal matters and world issues, displaying the characteristics of earnestness and apprehensiveness, which are then emphasized through his stylistic approach of a crude and rugged finish to his work. His sculptures are meant to produce unclear but constant emotions and visions that intend to dismantle the peaceful thought process. 

Gonzalez attended the California State University, Sacramento where he received his B.A. (1977) and his M.A. with a concentration in painting (1979). He later attended the University of California, Davis where he studied under Robert Arneson and Manuel Neri and received his M.F.A. with a concentration in sculpture. Holmes later became an artist-in-residence at the University of Georgia, Athens where he studied from 1981 to 1982. He additionally was involved in the East Village Art Scene, an anti-commercial, anti-authoritarian, and experimental art movement of the early 1980’s that was based in New York and was comprised of a group of young artists including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Jeff Koons. 

Alongside his studio practice, Gonzalez also has an extensive teaching practice, having taught classes, workshops, and lectures at a multitude of institutions. Gonzalez has served as an instructor at the Rhode Island School of Design, Haystack School of Crafts, and has been currently serving as a tenured professor at the California College of the Arts since 1991.

Gonzalez has been the recipient of many honors and awards, including the National Endowment of the Arts Award (1982, 1984, 1986, 1990), the California Arts Council Fellowship (1994), the Virginia Groot Foundation award (1985, 1997), and the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Visual Arts Award (2001). Gonzalez’s work can be found in the public collections of the Yale University Art Gallery, the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, DC, The Tainan National University of the Arts, Taiwan, and more.

Arthur Gonzalez, The Skeptic, 2015. John Wilson White photograph. California College of the Arts Ceramics professor Gonzalez creates sculptures that are the raw and disconcerting materialization of thoughts, dreams, and other fantastical visions. Gonzalez switched from painting to sculpture as a graduate student in 1979 and has used objects as imagery ever since. “I turned to sculpture to give my painting some breathing room. Painting on canvas necessarily means confronting a rectangle, and I was feeling stymied by that edge. Clay, I figured, would be a perfect proxy for canvas.”