Ganzo247

Mario Enrique Figueroa, Jr., artistically known as GONZO247, is a Houston native and a self-taught multidisciplinary artist with over 30 years of experience. GONZO's recognizable style of art, some in the form of large murals, adorn various neighborhoods around the city and state and in places around the world.

GONZO247 participated as a leading figure and pioneered graffiti and street art culture as an energetic underground art movement in Houston. He produced Aerosol Warfare, the video series documenting graffiti culture through the 1990s and 2000s. He co-founded the Houston Wall of Fame (the first and most uniquely discovered art production of its kind) and has participated in projects working with top brand campaigns that speak to urban communities. Over the years, GONZO has curated and collaborated on numerous art exhibitions. He recently founded the Graffiti and Street Art Museum (2015, in development), produced the Houston Urban Experience (HUE) Festival (2015 - 2019), and has continued to manage projects through Aerosol Warfare Gallery and Studio.

GONZO247 has volunteered many hours and participated in countless community activities. Organizations he has worked with include Discovery Green, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, TEDxYouth Houston, Avenue CDC - Art on The Avenue, DiverseWorks, Fresh Arts, Houston Arts Alliance, The Orange Show Center for Visionary Art, Houston Zoo, and Project Row Houses.

GONZO247 won the Houston Press Best Art Curator in a Non-Museum Setting Award in 2012, and one of his most famous works, Houston Is…, in downtown Houston was also voted the Houston Press Best Public Art Project 2013 and gained a Silver ADDY Award. This mural was honored as the Public Art Project Mural for the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau in 2013. His work appears in published books, including The History of American Graffiti 2011. He received Congressional Recognition from Member of Congress Sheila Jackson Lee for Arts in Community in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month 2018; received the Houston Metro Hispanic Heritage Month Award for Cultural and Historic Trail Blazers 2018; awarded a City of Houston Proclamation on September 27 for his artistic efforts and education in Houston 2016; received a City of Houston Proclamation on September 18 as part of the Mayor's Hispanic Heritage Award for Art in Community 2018; was co-awarded, with Harris County, Preservation Houston's Good Brick Martha Peterson Award for his efforts on redesigning (in collaboration with the original artist, Leo Tanguma), re-painting, and preserving a mural from 1973 titled The Rebirth of Our Nationality located in East End Houston.

In addition to public and private art commissions, GONZO247 has sold works of art from his studio to collectors who live locally, regionally, and globally. His upbringing and experiences while in Houston, his travels, and his Mexican culture have artistically inspired him to continue creating and honoring his culture and background while striving to collaborate cross-culturally.

Title of Work: Ancestral Light

Description of Work: My piece, titled “Ancestral Light“, represents the advancements of humanity in technology and space exploration. It’s the accumulated knowledge that has helped us break past the stratosphere and reach towards the stars our ancestors gazed upon.

More in depth about the piece:

I was excited to be one of 33 artists curated to paint on an Olmec Head replica. It was surreal to mash up contemporary styles with something designed a far back as 1400 BCE. It felt like a true collaboration between ancient and modern times as I envisioned meeting the original sculptors and having deep conversations about the infinite future.

I took a moment to thank my ancestors and asked the Olmec Head to guide me in bringing it to life.

Being from Houston, I could not escape the relationship between NASA, space exploration and the astrological knowledge of our ancestors. The piece starts on the back of the head, with the space shuttle blasting off into space. The space shuttle represents humanity as a whole. It is blasting off into the future, into the unknown. All of the colorful blast and thrust coming out of the shuttle is actually the collective energy, thoughts, evolution, and ingenuity of all civilizations that gives the space shuttle its lift off. From our earliest ancestors, we have progressed civilization by learning and adding to the existing technologies as we push forward. The colorful thrust trails down the back of the head and onto the sides. It’s very organic and whimsical. As a travels towards the front of the face, you will notice that , the lines get a little more angular, this represents how we have grown and change throughout time. As we get to the front of the head, we see a very complex version of humanity, compared to the simple organic forms in the back. The rim of the head you will notice something visually recognizable to the crown of thorns, but in this version, it is a crown of abstract nopales, and instead of thorns, you have the tunas fruit. This represents our struggles and our resilience to survive and thrive in situations or environments where most would not. On the sides of the top of the head, is an abstract nod to the Astrodome, which is a huge icon symbol for the city of Houston where I’m from. The Astrodome also represents the evolution of technology and the advancements and architecture. There is an Easter egg you might find if you look hard enough. There is an arrow pointing upwards and the arrow represents moving forward going up, but realistically, the arrow is pointing to the back of the head where it all started as a way of giving thanks and acknowledging the past. What’s interesting is, history is today, and the future already happened. The back of the head has the space shuttle, blasting off into the future, but for us, that future already happened. At that time, the space shuttle was the most current in technology and that happened 30+ years ago. This advancement is now in our past. There is also an arrow on the nose that is somewhat pointing down, but it’s more pointing down and forward, partly to symbolize hard work keep your nose to the grindstone and keep pushing forward but sometimes when you look forward, you look down, you also have to look within. Look at yourself do some self reflection and then see who you really are and you rise back up new person.