Strand Gallery
October 11, 2025 - January 4, 2026
ArtWalk Reception
Saturday, October 11, 2025
6 – 9 PM
Artist talk at 6:30 PM
GAC’s exhibitions are supported in part by a grant from Texas Commission on the Arts.
Gil Rocha
Title TBD
Gil Rocha’s exhibition, EXHIBITION TITLE, explores the U.S.-Mexico border as a site of transformation, complexity, and contradiction, where issues of migration, identity, and survival intersect. Grounded in rasquache aesthetics his work examines the act of crossing - physically, culturally, and psychologically - while challenging fixed notions of identity, place, and belonging. Using everyday materials such as signs, beer cans, plastic bags, and faded photographs, Rocha repurposes discarded objects to tell both personal and collective stories of struggle and endurance. These objects, imbued with the weight of border life, are transformed into symbols of survival and resilience. In Rocha’s work, the border becomes a fluid space, constantly shaped by political, social, and environmental forces, which he describes as “a dynamic place where lives, cultures, and histories converge and evolve.” Rocha invites viewers to reconsider the border as not just a line of division, but a space of complexity and possibility where geography intersects lives, cultures, and histories.
Gil Rocha is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, and community leader based in South Texas. Born in Laredo, TX, he currently serves as Board President of the Laredo Center for the Arts, where he collaborates with other community members to foster cultural engagement through exhibitions, workshops, and public programming. Over the past 25 years, Rocha has also contributed as an educator and panelist at various art institutions. He earned his Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2006), a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Texas at San Antonio (1999), and educator certification from Texas A&M International University (2002). Rocha’s work has been exhibited widely, including the Tucson Museum, 2024 Border Biennial at the El Paso Museum of Art, the 2024 Texas Biennial at the Blaffer Art Museum (Houston), the National Hispanic Cultural Center (Albuquerque), Mexic-Arte Museum (Austin), the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art, Chicano Park (San Diego), Presa House Gallery (San Antonio), Gerald Peters Contemporary (Santa Fe), Laredo College (Laredo), and Kirk Hopper Fine Art (Dallas). Rocha’s work forms part of the TIA Collection, The Nascent Collection of Mexican American Artists, and The Mexic-Arte Museum permanent collection. His artist residencies participation include UCROSS Foundation in (Clearmont, WY.), Flower Shop (Brownsville, TX.) also internationally at Casa Caché in (Mérida, Yucatán-Mexico), and Cobertízo in (Jilotepec, Mexico). This fall his work will be exhibited at The Cheech Center for Chicano Art & Culture (Los Angeles), The Historic Brownsville Museum, along with a solo exhibition at the Galveston Arts Center (Galveston, Texas).
gil-rocha.com