“Verónica Gaona creates spare, sometimes ephemeral objects, installations, and performances that explore the poetics of migration and permanence, memory and loss.”
– Natalie Dupêcher, Associate Curator of Modern Art, the Menil Collection
Verónica Gaona was born in Brownsville, Texas, on the U.S.–Mexico border, and is based in Houston. Gaona received an MFA in Studio Art – Photography from the University of Houston (2021). Gaona was awarded the Latinx Fellowship Award (2023), the Chispa Award (2022) by the Andrew Mellon Foundation and Ford Foundation, and the Artadia Award (2021). Gaona attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Madison, Maine (2025), International Studio & Curatorial Program in Brooklyn, New York (2024), PAC Residency in Houston (2024), Lawndale Art Residency in Houston (2022-2023), DUST in Marfa (2019), and School Fine Arts De Nantes Saint-Nazaire in Nantes, France (2019). Gaona has exhibited their work at El Museo del Barrio in New York City, the Tucson Museum of Art in Arizona, Burlington City Arts in Vermont, Lawndale Art Center and Blaffer Art Museum in Houston, as well as the Museum of Contemporary Art of Tamaulipas in Mexico. Gaona’s work was featured in the Wyeth Lecture in American Art at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, presented by Roberto J. Tejada. In 2026 Gaona, will participate in the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art Residency in Omaha, Nebraska. Currently, she is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Houston, School of Art – Photography and Video.
Verónica Gaona is a multidisciplinary artist motivated largely by social, cultural and political changes. Gaona uses salvaged metal truck parts and building materials to reflect on notions of migration, architecture and labor driven by economic flows. Considering the voices of displaced communities, Gaona reveals characteristics of diaspora such as opacity, transnationality, and impermanence to reimagine traditional memorialization and social transformation perspectives. Her artwork exists at the intersection of photography, sculpture, installation, and performance, bringing to the foreground spatial issues.
Image Details:
The Houses and Us, 2021, For Those Who do not Return in Life, there is Always Death (Homage to David Gomez), 2021, For Those Who do not Return in Life, there is Always Death (Homage to David Gomez), 2021, Eternal (Homage to Teresa Margolles), 2020, Migrant Camp, 2021, For Those Who do not Return in Life, there is Always Death, 2020, Dragged, 2020
