La Peña
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This exhibit creates an artistic space led by women engaged in creative activities with artistic expressions reflecting unique viewpoints and cultural enlightenment.
This exhibition is dedicated in memory of Alice Kleberg Reynolds and the support provided through the years by her foundation. 
We also dedicate this exhibition to Rosa Salcido for her  dedication to her daughter, and for her LOVE & Support of the arts.
Participating Artists:
Alejandra Almuelle, Ana Borne, Ana Campos, Chloe Canales, Pierce L. Cedillo, Cecilia Colomé, Rita Maria Contreras, Courtney Enriquez, Sandra Fernández, Azucena “Suzy” Garcia, Scherezade Garcia-Vazquez, Mary Jane Garza , Marsha Gomez, Naxieli Gomez
Maribel Hambric, Amara Y. Lopez, Esmeralda C. Lopez-Renta, Kelly Daniela Norris, Rachel Salcido, Cecilia Sanchez Duarte, Liliana Wilson , Terry Ybañez.

Curated by Dolores García

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Alejandra Almuelle
El Cuerpo es un Lugar
2022
Stoneware
28” x 15” x 5”
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This ceramic cephalic vessel from Of The Land series, is a commentary of the body as place and receptacle of memory, like the land itself.
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Ana Borne
Primavera (Springtime)
2025
Mosaics, Mixed Media
14” x 10” x  8”
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My favorite time of year is Springtime, it always feels fresh, nature is replenishing and all is blooming including love. Each year we celebrate our wedding anniversary on the first day of Spring.
Making art for me has always been therapeutic, a natural panacea, and has been a tool for introspection and experimentation. In my work I let the inspiration dictate the medium so I will often mix materials and techniques.  A favorite artist quote is from Paul Berensohn who believed “Art is not a way to make a living, it’s a way to make a life.”
I was born into a family of folk artists in Guatemala and have always been drawn to handcrafted work whether as functional or decorative pieces. It’s fascinating to study folk art traditions from around the world and how they reflect the people and region but also share a common thread with art from around the globe.

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Ana Campos
Untitled, 2024
Oil on canvas
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Growing up in Texas, I never felt fully included. I always felt very close to Mexican communities, since we have similar experiences and seeing more Mexican representation on TV made me want to creatively express myself with pride as a Salvadoran. I explore the intersectionalities of identity, everyday life, and how media has shaped my relationship to myself, my culture, my family, and my environment, being in a triangulation between Texas, California, and El Salvador. With media and community, there is a relationship that carries unique dynamics that go beyond what is visible and concrete. Using ideas of religion, the occult, the perception of light and form, and the reimagining of memory, worlds, and environments, I am able to make a broader connection that depicts the complexities of family and self. Ana Deisy Campos is a Salvadoran-American artist born in California and raised in Dallas, TX. She focuses on themes of connecting with family and the way the environment informs us and our relationships, recontextualizing things from everyday life. She is currently getting her BFA at the University of Texas at Austin (2025).

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Chloe Canales
Across Time and Space
NFS
Prints available: Contact us for current availability and pricing.

Prior to creating this artwork, I was meditating on the concept of women and their role as caretakers and compassionate providers. For a lot of my work I research ancient mesoamerican folklore about symbols that are used in pre-hispanic art. A phrase that kept coming to mind in the creation of this piece was “women as weavers” not only as textile workers, but also as storytellers and creators of new generations.
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Pierce L. Cedillo
Both Sides of Her, 2025
Oil on canvas
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Pierce Cedillo is a UT Austin student earning a dual degree in “Studio Arts” and “Race, Indigeneity and Migration”. Her current visual interests include a multitude of masculinities, tattoos and deep conversations with people who inspire her. She is currently seeking a job and enjoying her final weeks of undergrad. 
Pierce Cedillo’s artistic practice takes from a multi-disciplinary background of social languages and visual languages. She seeks to create dream-like paintings to bring her audience to a place of peace and comfort. As a form of reflection, Pierces’ art centralizing as a reflection of the world around her through the avenues of respect, transparency and love. In the particular artwork displayed at La Pena, she hoped to explore a folktale describing what it means to be known by two names, or the physical to the internal versions as a woman. She sought to understand the “bare bones” of what it means to have your name not only known but sought out. 

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Cecilia Colomé
Tunkuluchu, 2024
Lithograph on hand-made paper 
23 x 30.5 inches (including frame)
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Cecilia Colomé is a painter and printmaker who has made Austin her home since 1988. Cecilia was a student of the late painter Amalia Baquedano in Mérida, México, and studied printmaking with the late Juan José Beltrán in México City. Cecilia holds a B.Sc. in physics from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from UT-Austin.
As a printmaker, Cecilia works on linoleum plates, and on zinc and copper plates using dry point, engraving, aquatint etching, mezzotint, as well as intaglio and solar etching techniques. Recently, Cecilia has been learning and working on lithographs. As a painter, Cecilia works with oil paints on canvas, and watercolor and gouache on paper and aquabord.
In the past couple of years, I have been working on watercolor paintings of Mayan deities and mythology in a way to learn more about Mayan history of the Yucatan Peninsula, my birthplace and home in many ways. In many other ways, Austin is my home. Recently, I have learned lithography, a totally new medium for me. Lithography is the most personal medium I have worked on. It has transported me to the beginning of my art career: simply drawing on a blank surface. I decided to make my first lithograph using one of the models I had intended to make for my ongoing series of Mayan mythology, which is deeply rooted in the cycle of planting and harvesting maize. Tunkuluchú is the Mayan word for “Owl”. In many cultures, the owl symbolizes wisdom. This is true also in Mayan culture. A Mayan legend also tells that hearing a tunkuluchu sing was an omen of death. The ancient Maya did not see death as the end of life. The ancient Maya believed that the cycle of death and rebirth was connected to the cycle of maize growth and harvest. Tunkuluchu for me represents just one part of the ancient cycle of the human and maize connection.

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Rita Maria Contreras
Star Fruit
2023
Oil & cold wax on panel
14 x 14 inches
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Heavenly orbs and watery creatures swim about a primordial darkness of depth (or height.)  A triangular shaft of light in the upper right-hand corner is repeated in the pulsating yellow of stars.  In the opposite corner, a home with a path, the present overlaying the past (and the present--for life, energy--continues) grounds the opposite corner. 
Red lines connect but do not contain electric colors proclaiming the wonders we are bestowed.
Artist Statement re:  Star fruit
No one really knows why all of this creation came about, but we do know that amid all of the earthly wonders with which we are somewhat familiar--because we are always finding more about life on this earth than we ever knew existed—we are made of star dust.  We, you and me, are star fruit.  What an astounding thing to absorb--something for which I am grateful every day.  

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Courtney Enriquez
La Luna 
2025
Mixed Media
11 x 17 inches
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Sandra C. Fernández
Un Nuevo Amanecer (A New Dawn) 
2024
Screenprint, paper, and silk thread.  
22 x 30 in.
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Un nuevo amanecer (A New Dawn) is part of the Vases of Hope series. Created from old cut-out prints sewn back together, it forms a new composition that symbolizes regeneration and new beginnings. The vases, brimming with flowers, represent life’s resilience—its ability to flourish even in adversity—offering a message of hope.
Sandra C. Fernandez is an Ecuadorian American artist whose work reflects her multicultural heritage and personal journey. Born in New York, raised in Ecuador, and now residing in the United States, she explores themes of identity, migration, displacement, and belonging, weaving together past and present to honor heritage and evoke connection. Her art transcends the personal, resonating universally with audiences as part of a shared collective memory, where history, culture, and lived experiences intersect. Widely exhibited and collected, her work is featured in prestigious public collections, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and The Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET), to name a few.

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Azucena “Suzy” Garcia
Unapologetic Bliss
2025
Acrylic on canvas
20 x 24 inches
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After a fulfilling career as an elementary school principal, Azucena Garcia has embraced a new chapter in life, channeling her passion for creativity into the world of visual art. With a deep-seated belief in the power of imagination and expression, Azucena has always nurtured a love for art, fostering creativity in students throughout their educational career and finding joy and solace in the creative process. Azucena’s transition from the classroom to the canvas has allowed for a fresh perspective on creativity, drawing upon years of nurturing young minds. She believes that art, much like education, has the power to connect, inspire, and uplift. 

With this new venture, she hopes to inspire others to pursue their passions, no matter the stage of life and hopes that each brushstroke invites others to pause, reflect, and find meaning in their own lives. As she steps into the art community, she is both eager and enthusiastic for the opportunity to share her artistic vision with a broader audience. 
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Scherezade Garcia-Vazquez
The Liguid Highway Series
2018
Painting on paper
22 x 30 inches
NFS ($3,500)

The sea is the liquid highway and the keeper of our ancestral memory. It carries our stories, our DNA, our memories, and our history. The artwork is inspired by the crossing of the Atlantic.
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Mary Jane Garza 
Ojo de Diosa #4 
2024
Mixed media - repurposed wired, beads & charms
16 x 16 inches
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Collection of Marial L. King.

I have been inspired by the Huichol who make Ojo de Dios with yarn and was deeply drawn to create my own with repurposed materials, especially bits of jewelry which convey the feminine aspect of the duality of god/goddess energy in the universe. 
Estuve inspirada por los huicholes que hacen Ojo de Dios con hilo y me sentí  profundamente atraída a crear uno mío propio con materiales reutilizados,  especialmente piezas de joyería que transmiten el aspecto femenino de la dualidad de la energía dios/diosa en el  universo.

The energy and spirit that go into my work result in a unique expression of respect and reverence for women, the Earth, and indigenous way of life.”
– Marsha Gomez
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Marsha Gomez
The Weaver
1995
Ceramic on wood
NFS 

Marsha Gómez , a sculptor and activist for social change, was best known for her monumental “Madre del mundo” (Mother of the World) series. Depicting a life-sized indigenous woman cradling a globe in her lap, the first of her “madre” works was created for a Mother’s Day protest and peace encampment on Western Shoshone land opposite a nuclear testing facility in Nevada. Gómez later made other “Madre del Mundo” sculptures for the Peace Farm in the Texas Panhandle, directly across from the Pantex nuclear weapons plant, and for Casa de Colores, an indigenous resource center in Brownsville.
Born in Louisiana in 1951, she was educated in Arkansas, where she acquired a lifelong interest in traditional indigenous pottery techniques. Learning these methods helped Gómez reclaim her Choctaw heritage. Through her art, she also sought to celebrate women and her commitment to world peace. Eventually, her work also reflected the pottery tradition of indigenous women in Oaxaca, Mexico, and the San Ildefonso Pueblo in New Mexico.
Gómez became identified with Texas principally through her long association with Alma de Mujer, an Austin retreat center for social change that emphasizes indigenous women’s heritage. She was a founder of the center (in 1988), and directed it for many years.
In 1997 Gómez was awarded a grant to continue her study of traditional pottery in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. She died the following year, at the age of 46.

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Naxieli Gomez
Después del temblor
(After the earthquake)

2024
Oil on canvas
30 x 30 inches 
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Maribel Hambric
Recuerdos 
2024
Acrylic. 16” x 12”
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Amara Y. Lopez
Flourish
2025
Acrylic on canvas, 
18 x 24 inches
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My work investigates the complexity of nature’s forms and the beauty of their demise through an intuitive process of gestural abstraction. Working in oil paint, acrylic, ink and papermaking, I do not aim to represent a contrast between life and death, but rather how they complete each other. 
Growing up Mexican American, I was always entranced by Mexican culture’s colorful and lively depictions of death. I explore this in my art by crafting vibrant portrayals of death using vivid color and graphic lines. Death is alive; a release of energy that sparks growth in the cycle of life. Most people fear death, yet they are simultaneously compelled by morbid curiosity. Humans are drawn to death and chaotic forces like fire despite their capacity for devastation. I feel that there is a feminine energy to fire, chaos, and death due to the inherently grotesque experience of womanhood. The female body undergoes a constant, vicious cycle of decay and regrowth; the creation of life comes at the cost of their blood, organs and bone.
This internal ferocity intersects with the marginalization of women, creating a violent external environment as well. I feel so much rage simply being a woman, but that anger is not a burden to me. I view it as an inspiration, and it fuels me to create abstract worlds drawing from imagery of fire, decay, plants, bones, cells, and rock formations. My work invites existential considerations, navigating the vivid interactions between life, death, and femininity by going beyond representational inspirations, becoming amalgamations of color, line and texture. 
Amara Lopez is a Mexican American artist born in Mexico City and raised in Dallas, TX. She explores themes of the relationship between life and death, and the way nature and its destructive forces connect to the feminine experience. She is currently pursuing her BFA at the University of Texas at Austin (2025).

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Esmeralda C. Lopez-Renta
Limitless Kaleidoscope, 2025 
Mixed Medium, 16 x 20 inches
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Ever present in the world around me, I draw inspiration from the depths of my soul, breathing life into my innermost feelings. I revel in conjuring the essence of places I’ve wandered and ideas I’ve cherished, stirring emotions within the hearts of others.Esmeralda C. Lopez-Renta, a self-taught mixed media artist from Fort Worth, Texas, has been creating art for over two decades. Her diverse body of work includes mixed media paintings, paper crafts, and fabric art. She draws inspiration from her travels and profound emotional experiences, Esmeralda’s creations have been featured at La Pena Gallery in Austin, TX
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Esmeralda C. Lopez-Renta
Destinos De La Reina
2025
Mixed Medium
20 x 16 inches
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Kelly Daniela Norris
Ladyparts
2019
Collage
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My creations veer from heady and ambitious to absurd and frivolous -- and it all keeps me going. This piece speaks to a coping mechanism of applying whimsy and lightness to dark realities. 
Kelly Daniela Norris is a Mexican-American filmmaker and collage artist.  In 2017, she was selected for Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 Faces of Independent Filmmaking”, and her second narrative feature, NAKOM, premiered at Berlinale, and was nominated for the ‘John Cassavetes Award’ at the Independent Spirit Awards. When sans camera, she collages using discarded materials to reflect on femininity, matriarchies, and family mythology.

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Rachel Salcido
Altar, 2024
Acrylic on Burlap
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As a queer, disabled Mexican-American, my work explores intersectional identity through gender, disability, and tradition. I use mark-making to examine labor, mirroring the effort needed to navigate inaccessible spaces. My primary mediums are painting and printmaking, often featuring fruit—especially pomegranates and papayas—as symbols of gender, sexuality, and cultural connection. Papayas, abundant in Mexican markets, reflect matriarchal traditions through their yonic imagery. Still life fruit paintings function as both micro and macro landscapes, often set alongside bodies of water like the Rio Grande, which carries lost border histories.
Growing up in El Paso shaped my understanding of in-betweenness—it is neither quite Mexico, nor quite Texas, nor fully the US. My recent work draws from the US-Mexico border’s visual language: fences, bridges, highways, and oil refineries blending into the mountains. These structures merge the man-made with the natural. Sand in my gesso grounds my surfaces in the literal earth, while burlap references labor and tradition. My work transforms this politicized landscape into a space of otherworldliness and transcendence.

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Cecilia Sanchez Duarte
Sister’s Trunks
Optical Prints 4 White Lace & Velvet Layers
12.99” x 9.84” x 1.77”
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SISTER’S TRUNKS is a reference of sisterhood and humanity as part of nature, as being nature and as part of other life forms. Two trunks forming one tree. I reinforce with organic lines and vibrant textures. 3D and kinetic optical illussion makes the viewer feel it. 
Cecilia Sánchez Duarte studied Sociology and Visual Arts at UNAM and specialized in Printmaking at the Mission Cultural Center and at the San Francisco Art Institute in California, USA. Sánchez Duarte has participated in more than 300 national and international collective shows, Cecilia has been selected in several art competitions and has exhibited 21 solo exhibitions. Since the 90s, she has been a guest artist at La Peña Gallery in Austin TX and in 2024 she registered her brand ARTE SANDÚ Optical Prints which is the new printing technique she invented and called Optical Prints. 

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Liliana Wilson 
Mercy
2025
Pencil ink & acrylic on paper
24 x 24 inches
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Liliana Wilson is a visual artist best known for her intricate drawings with surrealistic renderings.  She was born in Valparaíso, Chile where she began drawing at the age of eight. She immigrated to the United States in 1977 and pursued studies in art at Texas State University.
Her medium is color pencil on paper or illustration board or acrylic on canvas, panel or illustration board. Sometimes it is a mixture of both. 
Her work has been exhibited in the USA, Mexico, Argentina and Italy.
Liliana’s history of artistic expressions is the subject of a book edited by Norma E. Cantu titled Ofrenda: Liliana Wilson’s Art of Dissidence and Dreams (Texas A & M Press, 2015).

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Terry Ybañez
Alien Nation
2024
Acrylic on canvas
36 x 30 inches
Contact us for current availability and pricing.

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  • Home
  • Previous Exhibitions
    • Postcards of Hope
    • Voces de Luz
    • International Women Day 23
    • Celebrando La Vida
    • Renderings of Santa Cecilia
    • Dia de los Muertos 2021
    • Warrior Women
    • Mes de los Fotógrafos
    • Serving The Community
    • Of Imaginary Cities
    • AMATE
    • Through Their Eyes
    • International Women's Day
    • Latino Artists in Printmaking
  • Events
  • Contact
  • Artists
  • Membership
  • Photos/Videos