About Cynthia Gonzalez

Discovery

Cynthia Gonzalez learned to be creative and resilient as a child. She grew up on a farm in rural Maine with her six siblings and a large extended family. Some of her favorite memories are of being taught to sew and crochet by her grandmother. Over the years she has taken art and architecture programs while working professionally as a teacher and Early Intervention Specialist with young children. For the past ten years she has been studying classical drawing and painting with classical artist Rhonda Kyrias, which changed her dramatically as an artist. She is a member of the American Women Artists (AWA), the Pastel Society of the West Coast (PSWC) and the Healdsburg Plein Air Painters group. Cyndi teaches Classical Drawing and Pastel workshops at her studio.

Cynthia Gonzalez has resided in Sonoma County for the past twenty-five years. Studying the Old Masters Tradition under Rhonda Kyrias, she has made her work her own. She is best known for her vibrant still life and portraiture done in graphite. Having grown up in rural Maine, she has always been interested in all that is natural. Her process takes several months to a year to ensure the accuracy of each detail. Through her work, she intends to capture the vibrancy of life that can not be measured by a single photograph.

Cynthia is a member of the American Women Artists (AWA) and Pastel Society of the West Coast organizations, as well as a participating in the Healdsburg Plein Air Painters group. Cynthia teaches Classical Drawing classes and pastel workshops at her studio in Geyserville, California.

I grew up in a lively household with six siblings in rural Maine. My family has always been very self-reliant, and I was encouraged to learn to make do with what we had and be creative when I needed anything. From that time on, I have always had an insatiable desire to make things. My hands always have to be busy, and my mind is always thinking about how to manipulate materials into strange and wonderful creations. I have experimented with fiber arts (crochet and sewing), cake decorating and architectural drawing. One of the reasons that I love painting is that my visual and tactile senses come together to bring forth beauty. I love the sensory, immersive quality of oil and pastel painting and the extreme focus that it takes to draw and paint realistically. I also enjoy letting my imagination wander in surprising ways to create more fantastical works with realistic images. My whole perspective changed in 2015 when I met Rhonda Kyrias to take a classical drawing class. I started to see, and draw, in a whole new way, and now my work reflects the relationship focus and empathy for people and the environment that I learned from my childhood. Right now my struggle is to reconcile classical traditions with contemporary expressionism in my own work.

Cynthia Gonzalez

Geyserville, CA

Statement