Ana González Barragán

Ana González Barragán (b. 1989, Mexico City, MX) is a conceptual artist whose research focuses on the cultural, political, and geological histories of stones and minerals such as obsidian, marble, and other materials with long aesthetic traditions. González Barragán creates sculptures and installations that explore or amplify the metaphoric potential of geologic bodies, paying careful attention to their complex geologic histories detectable in veins, cracks, and gradations of tone. Formal experimentations include assemblage with stones, drill bits, pipes, ceramics, and mine-recovered objects used in provocative combinations.

At the same time, González Barragán uses time-based media and oral history to document the extractive and often violent and exploitative processes long associated with these materials. The gender politics and labor practices of mining along with the ecological impacts of industrial capitalism illustrate our relationship to our planet with its very different sense of scale and temporality and an awareness of the narratives, both natural and cultural, embedded in these ancient materials.

This extensive research and documentation is conducted in locations that include Sierra de las Navajas, Mexico, and Marble, Colorado, through relationships built with both mine workers and managers as well as impacted local communities.  

González Barragán has exhibited in venues such as Salon Acme, Material Art Fair; Momoroom in Mexico City; and Swab Art Fair in Barcelona, Spain. She has installed a commissioned public art piece at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art in Colorado. González Barragán holds an MFA in Sculpture and Post-Studio Practice from the University of Colorado Boulder.