The paintings of Jessica Gonzales explode with bold color, geometric shapes, monumental flowers, and the glowing faces of her community. Her monumental mural Synthesis of Dreams combines—like building blocks—portraits with abstract elements that seem to blossom around the faces she’s painted in her bright color palette.  

Each figure in her large-scale mural represents this “vastness of opportunity,” the idea of a nearly infinite space of options a person can explore. As a child who grew up in a military family, her childhood spent in Germany had a profound impact on how she began to explore her artwork. Now based in Tucson, Arizona, Gonzales continues to expand on the many different people and places she has encountered, and how the underlying experience of interconnectedness defines our shared experiences.