EULALIA GAMEZ

Eulalia Gámez was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles, CA, and lives in Merced, CA. Her parents immigrated from Nueva Concepción Escuintla, Guatemala and she has five siblings. Gámez grew up around a very talented family; her mother is a trained seamstress, screen printer and home decorator, her two younger brothers are musicians, her two older brothers are contractors and her sister is a business owner and financial analyst. From a young age Gámez was observant and aware of her family dynamics; growing up in a matriarchal family led by her mother. Gámez saw her mother be able to do everything; work, keep a household and be an active parent. As an adult, she knows her mother was a multitasker out of need to survive and provide as a single parent. These experiences would later be explored in her artwork and performances.

Gámez has studied many forms of art including; dance, vocal performance, costuming, theatre, painting and sculpting.

From 2012 to 2014, Gámez decided to work as a nude model for art classes and privately. The decision was based on wanting to understand the experience of the subject being made art of and seeing a lack of range in body shapes in art. The experience was empowering, the interactions with the artists all varying and reaffirming of her own artistic journey. Besides the mental obstacle of being reserved, Gámez faced being exploited by a student who took photos while she worked and text messaged them to male students not in the classes. Gámez battled slut shaming raised by male students’ sexual harassments, sexualization and lack of respect. This experience strengthened Gámez‘s backbone and she decided she’d carry herself with pride no matter what was going on in life.

Gámez took a hiatus from working every day from 2018 through 2020, the experience of taking a breather after 10 years of creating every day, opened her to a period of observing art and life. The time off made her grow as a visual arts instructor, achieving the goal of being able to break down art to teach technique to other artists.

Currently Gámez works on her independent work as an artist and advocates to integrate artists with special needs into the art community, city projects and training opportunities.