Artist: Crystal Gonzalez Callison
Title: Selectively Passing On My Inheritance
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 48 x 48 x 1.5 inches
Price: $3,200
Artist Bio: Crystal Gonzalez Callison (b. 1988) is a Texas-native Utah-based interdisciplinary artist and mother of six, including children with disabilities. Despite not having a formal art education she began pursuing her own artistic practice in her mid-30s to process grief, particularly following her father’s passing. Her work emerges from questions of memory, absence and presence, loss, identity, motherhood, and heritage. As a Mexican American, daughter of immigrants, and mother, she creates art that reflects the cultural disconnect she experiences, visually depicting the contrast between what has been lost and what has been preserved. Through different mediums, she focuses on memory, grief, and preserving what matters.
Artist Statement: Rebecca Wagstaff’s essay, “Reflections on Life, Art, Loss, and Love,” resonated with me because loss has shaped both my life and my decision to pursue art. Her reflections on inheritance connected with ideas that have always been part of my work. When I create, I think about my ancestors, the little I know about their lives, what I may have inherited from them, and how they shaped me. Now that my father and all of my grandparents have passed away, I am left with the fragments of what I know about them and what they passed on to me. “Selectively Passing On My Inheritance” reflects on what I have inherited from them and the ongoing process of choosing what is worth passing on to my children and what I want to change.
