Today we’d like to introduce you to Marcel Alcala.
So, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
When I was a late teen, I moved from my hometown of Santa Ana, CA to Chicago to study at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. During my time in the Midwest, I would organize parties and art events at mostly Non-Art spaces like dungeons, indoor malls, and abandoned churches. It was a nitty-gritty time in which I was obsessed with the idea of my life as a performance, curating as a form of art. Post-school, I moved and failed to live in NY interning for The Hole, run by Kathy Grayson. We both shared an admirer from Chicago who lived on the edge. Quickly the summer ended and I moved to LA for five years.
In LA, I discovered my true performative self manifesting as a clown archetype called Payasa reading/writing monologue performances, djing, and hosting readings at a McDonalds on Sunset Blvd. In collaboration with my queer group of LA friends, also known as The Gurts, we would organize events similar to my past in Chicago culminating into a book that referenced the idea that queer cultures language is consistently in flux, meanings of certain words have the potential to keep on changing depending on life experience in the moment. It is during my time in LA where I was introduced to the Tom of Finland foundation which inspired me to make drawings.
From there on out, I developed an oil pastel practice that has now manifested into oil, gouache, and acrylic paintings of smiley and sad face people, an homage to the idea of comedy and tragedy I was immersed in during my time as a professional clown. My practice is always changing, always referencing my past. My identity as a queer Latinx body motivates me tremendously, it is never about where I show but the opportunity to have a voice and to be seen. As I reach 30, I continue to speak of these same ongoing concepts but represented in different forms whether it be poetry, screenwriting, photography, painting, playwriting, or curatorial endeavors. It is a privilege to create and I am so so so thankful for the artists, supporters, and wise goddesses in my life.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
There are always struggles. I have been told I would never work with anyone in LA if I worked with certain people. I have been told that my dreams were never realistic. I’ve had bad relationships with dealers. I have been homeless. Lost lovers. Lost friends to drugs. I’ve been resentful of the “institution,” but now I realized all those struggles were a means to work on myself and to not be bothered by this idea of what a career should look like. In a lot of ways, I am more content with the ongoing process of creating and am open to the struggle because the struggle is an important part of my truth. The older I get the more confident I become with the self. Hope truly leads my life.
What else should our readers know?
I’m an artist who strives to be my most authentic self.
What were you like growing up?
Aries child. Period. I wore dresses and wore cowboy boots. Yelled at the top of my lungs. Always the queer kid. Every summer growing up till I was 18 we would go to Huejucar, Jalisco, my mother’s birthplace. I would dress in drag, date the town cuties, drink and smoke cigs all at the age of 14. My uncles, even now, call me Damian which basically means The Devil. In Santa Ana, I was bit more of a repressed emo kid, considering my father was and still is homophobic. Luckily my escape was drawing. My introduction to art-making was through my brother who is 20 years older than I am. He would take me to John Waters, Basquiat, Almodovar, and other general openings. Those artists and films influenced me to become the character I am now. Moral of the story, I was a wild ass child.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: marcel_alcala
Image Credit:
All art images are provided my Mickey Gallery
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