photo by Beth Driscoll with hand coloring by Elaine Bay.

Raúl Gonzalez was born in El Paso, Texas and grew up going back and forth between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, México. Raul is a recepient of the prestigous Pura Belpre award in illustration from the American Library Association for his work on Lowriders to the Center of the Earth in 2017. Lowriders in Space was nominated for a Texas BlueBonnet award in 2016-2017. Raul is the recipient of the Borther Thomas Fellowship 2015. He is a contributor to SpongeBob Squarepants Comics. In 2011 Beautiful/Decay in collaboration with Canson awarded him a Wet Paint Grant.  In 2009 Gonzalez received an award from the Artadia Foundation for Art and Culture. He was voted Boston’s best visual artist for 2010 by readers of The Boston Phoenix. His work has been exhibited widely in the northeast including The Drawing Center in New York, the Aidekman Gallery at Tufts University in Medford, MA and The Mills Gallery at the Boston Center for the Arts in Boston, Ogunquit Museum of American Art as well as on the west coast at SCION Installation, San Francisco Art Institute and Self-Help Graphics in Los Angeles. In 2010 he worked on his first large scale mural sponsored by the Boston Arts Commission installed in the neighborhood of East Boston. Gonzalez is committed to introducing youth to the visual arts and has taught in the education departments of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In 2011 Gonzalez collaborated with over 125 kids from all over the city of Boston to create a work titled “and their Families” for the Linde Family Wing of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gonzalez lives in Medford, MA, with Elaine Bay and their son Raúl the Fouth.