A young woman looks up from her TV dinner. A yellow car crashes through her blue wall. The room fills with clouds of white cotton smoke from a cherry-red TV set. The image, playful and dramatic, tells such a story that you can stare for hours and see new details.
This is one of the many wild and wonderful images from multidisciplinary artist Raúl Gonzo, a West Sacramento resident and former music video producer whose first museum exhibition, “Color Madness,” runs at Crocker Art Museum through Oct. 20.
Growing up in Southern California, then Wheatland and Yuba City, Gonzo recalls his first encounter with a camera.
“My family was very poor, but somehow my parents got three of us five kids Kodak cameras that took cassette film,” he recalls. “I shot some pictures on that and when I developed them, my dad and stepmom kept looking at mine. I thought I was in trouble! They ended up telling me they were really good, with really good composition.
“It’s funny,” he continues. “My dad always told me that I would arrange things by color and size. I always wanted things to be centered because it felt better balanced. Something about my brain said to put things in these places.”
A sense of composition serves Gonzo well in his career as a visual artist. His interest in photography led him to classes at Yuba College, then an internship at a TV news studio at age 23. Soon he landed a job teaching photography at the Marysville Charter Academy for the Arts.
Inspiration followed.
“I learned so much from and because of the students,” he says. “I felt the obligation to know things and be even better at my craft.”
He experimented with music video production. That led to signing with a production company in Los Angeles where he produced videos for The Goo Goo Dolls, Kat Von D, Jacob Collier, Kimbra and I Don’t Know How But They Found Me.
Music video success prompted Gonzo to quit teaching. But the creative itch continued.
“When I was pitching (music video) work for production, 90% of it was rejected,” Gonzo says. “I had all these crazy ideas and I was depressed they weren’t getting used. So after seven or eight years, I decided to try and shoot them as still photographs.”
What emerged was his series “Color Madness.” Gonzo plans out a scene in sketches then builds a set, typically painting it a monochrome color to offset the model who is posed playfully and dressed in bright, often retro clothing.
With inspiration from theater dramas and old Hitchcock films, Gonzo creates images in vibrant Technicolor that examine American culture, consumerism, beauty standards and more.
“I thought I’d do a few and be done with it, but I really fell in love with it,” he says. “It’s a series, but it’s also now my brand. This is all I want to do, and I’ve done it for 10 years.”
When COVID-19 arrived, Gonzo approached the Crocker about an exhibition. Accustomed to pitching music videos, he prepared an 80-page presentation that caught the eye of Associate Director and Chief Curator Scott Shields, who passed it along to Curator Francesca Wilmott, who worked with Gonzo to create the artist’s first exhibition.
“Color Madness” includes photos from the past decade and an installation where visitors can pose on a colorful set. Gonzo took inspiration from his 2016 installation at Art Hotel, where he loved watching visitors interact with his all-red bathroom.
“My approach to everything is you just have to go out and make yourself known,” Gonzo says. “If you don’t, nothing will ever happen. It could go horribly, but you will never regret it. It’s not about win or lose, it’s just about trying.”
“Color Madness” is at Crocker Art Museum, 216 O St., through Oct. 20. For information, visit raulgonzo.com or Instagram @raulgonzo.
Jessica Laskey can be reached at jessrlaskey@gmail.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
