Gronk

A native Angeleno and autodidact, Gronk began his art practice alongside other self-taught Chicano artists in Los Angeles. He was a founding member of the artist collective Asco, along with Harry Gamboa Jr., Willie Herrón, and Patssi Valdez, which produced photos, films, murals and performance with a sharp, conceptual edge. One of the group's defining acts was the defacement of LACMA, in which the artists used spray paint to sign the museum’s facade, protesting the exclusion of Chicano artists; nearly forty years later, LACMA hosted their retrospective, Asco: Elite of the Obscure, during the Getty’s PST initiative.

Synthesizing elements of street art, modernist theater, and B-movies, Gronk creates dramatic, dynamic work that spans mediums and movements. He created the mural Tormenta Cantata, Echoes from the Past, live at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 1996, and for the past 20 years, he has devoted much of his creative talents in the production of set designs for the operas staged by Peter Sellars. These influences saturate his paintings, which are often covered in graffiti-like markings and decorated front and back in a nod to stagehands operating behind the scenes.