Gil Rocha is a contemporary artist born and raised in Laredo, Texas. His art practice in and out of his studio encompasses a variety of techniques, including but not limited to assemblage, painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation. His work expresses the lexicon of the Mexican-American border and the many social/political issues that derive from it. Rocha earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2006 and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 1999. His current body of work takes on an inventive and survivalist approach with a Rascuache aesthetic. Many of his works include a combination of Spanglish text and phrases. Crude looking, yet playful, often his structures are made with a variety of discarded objects. They look familiar and portray narratives of things we carry physically and within.
Rocha has exhibited nationally and internationally, notably The Texas Biennial in Austin, TX (2017), and the Trans-Border Biennial at The El Paso Museum of Art and El Museo de Arte en Ciudad Juarez, Mexico (2018). In addition to his studio practice, Rocha has guest-curated several exhibitions, including Young Latino Artists 23 at the Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin, TX, and a forthcoming exhibition planned to coincide with The Other Border Wall Project at the 937 Gallery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Additionally, Rocha has been teaching for 20 years and is currently the painting and drawing instructor at The Vidal M. Treviño School of Communication and Fine Arts. He is also a Board Member of the Laredo Center for the Arts and The Webb County Representative with the Laredo Culture District Project.