My name is Lucia Gonzalez Ippolito. I am a descendant of Mission-based muralists, screen-printers, teachers and cultural organizers. Amidst the inheritance of such deep artistic and cultural traditions, I have worked hard to define my own voice and practice. The work I make responds to critical contemporary issues with a focus on social and political justice—and its absence—in my neighborhood and around the globe.
My work is largely figurative and representational and reflects the dissonance, ambivalence, and struggle in the lives of everyday people. One of my primary aims is to challenge the viewer—in terms of their values, biases, privileges, and assumptions—just as I am challenged when engaging with and depicting the subjects in my works (in terms of my own values, biases, privileges, and assumptions). I include historical references, as well as existing and invented symbols and metaphors as a way to illustrate how, without structural change, history is doomed to repeat itself. I also do this as a way to build solidarity—uniting the fight for freedom “over here,” with the fight for freedom “over there.”
Mission Makeover, my first mural, was inspired by my lived experience growing up in a Latinx neighborhood that was undergoing rapid change. The piece centers on the displacement and gentrification that we were all experiencing. I made this work as a way to open up dialogue with my community and to reflect our collective struggles. Collaboration and community engagement are integral to my artistic practice and, I believe, critical to world-building and change-making through art.
The San Francisco Poster Syndicate, a group that I co-founded, is made up of students and teachers who screen-print posters live at protests and artistic/cultural events. My screen-prints, much like my paintings and murals, typically represent those around me: community members and activists. My current body of work, which focuses on the Balmy Alley-based event, Lovers Lane, stems from a true love of my culture and my people, it embodies resistance, and magnifies the power of community. My work is often question driven. In this case, I ask questions like: How can radical love be an antidote and salve for social crises? What voltage of power can our community generate when we come together through art and creativity? How can we move the needle on racism, the dehumanization of marginalized individuals, and social/political injustices through community-wide dialogue? How can we create and hold space for like minded individuals to come together in solidarity through art in order to find the justice that we seek?
I see my work as an extension of those who came before me and am influenced by many Bay Area muralists, especially Mujeres Muralistas—the first women to paint murals in the Mission. PLACA, a large group of artists and activists formed in 1984, has also been a great inspiration; PLACA started the original community block parties on Balmy, a tradition which I am proud to carry on today. I aspire to live up to the ideals of past artists/activists such as Rene Yañez, Yolanda Lopez, Ray Patlan, bell hooks, Toni Morrison, and Frida Kahlo.
After receiving my masters degree at San Francisco State University, I reached my dream of becoming a teaching artist. As an art educator, I teach youth the history of street art, muralism, and Indigenous Black and Brown community-based artists, many of whom have shaped the cultural landscape of the San Francisco Bay Area past and present.
