Candy Alexandra Gonzalez
Candy Alexandra González is a Little Havana-born and raised, Philadelphia-based, multidisciplinary visual artist, poet, activist and trauma-informed educator. Currently, Candy’s artwork explores themes of body politics, fat phobia and self-healing through photography, poetry, printmaking and papermaking. Candy received their MFA in Book Arts + Printmaking from the University of the Arts in 2017. Since graduating, they have been a 40th Street Artist-in-Residence in West Philadelphia, a West Bay View Fellow at Dieu Donné in Brooklyn, NY, a Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation Micro-Grant Recipient and the Linda Lee Alter Fellow for the DaVinci Art Alliance.
Awarded Grants
2024
Residencies
Related grantees
Overview
Leeway x Fleisher’s 2024 Visual Artist-in-Residence, Candy Alexandra González will focus their residency on creating multimedia artwork centered around the reclamation of the Spanish word “tortillera” – a derogatory term that has historically been used to mean lesbian or dyke, and also relates to a person who makes and sells tortillas. Through the creation of ceramics, block printing, photography, and film, Candy hopes to honor the legacy of queer elders and ancestors, center the healing and liberation of queer and trans people of color (QTPOC), and forge conversations about the rampant homophobia that persists in Latine communities today.
Candy will facilitate a series of workshops on block printing on fabric and rainbow tortilla making that will culminate in a feast inside the Fleisher Sanctuary. The tablescape of this feast will be intentionally curated to embody core themes through Oaxacan-inspired ceramicware made by Candy, as well as block printed tablecloths, mats, and napkins, as well as food made in collaboration with community members. This feast, only open to sapphic queers of color, will be well documented through video and photography and edited into a short film. The film will be shown at a community screening, open to the greater public, where participants of the project and other QTPOC community members will be invited to participate in a panel discussion about queerness in communities of color.
2021
Art and Change Grant (ACG)
Related grantees
Overview
Candy Gonzalez and Symone Salib's project, "You Are My Other Me", will include a series of virtual trauma-informed restorative art workshops that center queerness and self-exploration, particularly for QTPOC communities. These workshops will also lead to a collaborative public art installation that is conceptualized during the collective self-exploration process. The central theme of the mural will be queer healing and self-determination.