Mar Gonzalez

Mar Gonzalez, 26, is an interdisciplinary artist and visual storyteller based in Austin, TX.

MAR Y QUE?

I remember teaching my mother how to say “elle” (they/them) and “Que bonite mi niñe” (My child is so pretty) instead of “Que bonita mi niña” (My daughter is so pretty). I assured her that I would have patience, that I don’t expect her to reinvent her language so easily. I asked her to call me Mar, and as she spoke these new words out loud I felt seen.

As a non-binary and queer person I am witnessing language shift to accommodate my identity, or rather, I am shifting language and demanding that the world accommodate me. What does it mean to explore your identity between two nations, two languages, two genders? I have known the restraints of borders/walls/fences as intimately as the imposed binds of gender/language/sexuality. As I become myself day by day, I reckon with these experiences.

By Mar Gonzalez

*blank page*
Mar sits at a kitchen table resting their head on their arms and staring at a blank page. Warm sunlight streaks through the blinds onto the table, Mar wears a blue bandana, a black tank, and blue jeans.

Safe
Mar leans back in a seated position on an olive green bed wearing a beige chest binder and black briefs. Their hair is wet and slicked back and they are gazing at the camera.

*brought here*
A faucet with a red handle protrudes from a dark grey wall, there are two parallel banana tree trunks in the foreground framing the faucet, the ground is covered with whitish stones.

*mangos maduros*
Mar sits on the curb in a white tank and shorts eating a mango, they are squinting from the sunlight and looking up at the camera, there is grass and a brown wooden fence behind them.

*borders*
Mar sits in a parking lot on a yellow parking block in front of two overlapping brown fences, they are looking up to the right side of the image and using their hand to shield their eyes from the sun. Two silver cables run across the top of the image.

*el puente*
Mar carries a green bicycle over their shoulder as they walk down their apartment stairs, they are framed between two brown metal rails and the sky is blue and clear overhead.

*searching*
Mar wears a blue bandana and golden hoops, the sunlight streaks across their face in a pattern resembling the blinds on the balcony. The rest of their apartment is dark and blurry in the background.

*friendship*
Nico wears a black tank and is center-frame with their long dark curly hair down, the image is cropped just below their eyes so you can just barely catch the frame of their glasses. Mar embraces them from behind wrapping their arms over their chest and underneath their beard. Nico holds Mar’s arm with both of their hands. Mar’s knuckles are tattooed and read 956.

*desire*
Mar sits in a grey chair in an overgrown backyard, they are wearing a grey tank and briefs and are holding a pink flower. They have their nose buried in the flower and their eyes closed.

*intimacy*
Mar sits in a backyard with an old fence in the background, they are holding yellow flowers. Nico stands behind them with their arms folded over their chest and holding white and pink flowers. Nico rests their chin on the top of Mar’s head and looks away to the right side of the frame. Mar is wearing a beige binder and white shorts and looking straight at the camera.

me 001
Mar looks into a small rectangular mirror, one eye peeking out from behind their black minolta film camera, their finger on the trigger. They are wearing a tropical button-up shirt. The mirror is on a white wall that is divided by the large rectangle of sunlight framing the mirror, the top and bottom of the image are dark grey.