Today we’d like to introduce you to Alejandra González Díaz.
Hi Alejandra, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My name is Alejandra. I was born in Caguas, Puerto Rico, and at six years old my mother, Omayra, migrated my older brother Martín and me to the United States. We grew up in Tampa, Florida (mostly in Sulphur Springs) carrying Puerto Rican culture with us as we moved through childhood and adolescence.
Creativity showed up early: I remember in grade school drawing and coloring elaborate dress designs and racing to show them to my teachers, who encouraged me to keep going. From age 11 to 19 I was deeply involved in school music programs, playing trumpet, mellophone, and French horn. Mr. Gonzalez at Memorial Middle School believed in his students and his care helped me through some of the hardest moments; music gave me discipline and confidence I still rely on.
For many years my visual art lived in the closet because I thought someone would have to discover it for me. In 2021 I decided I was holding myself back and took action. An artist friend, Angel, urged me to apply to an Anti-Valentine’s Day exhibit in St. Petersburg, Florida. I submitted a vulnerable self-portrait about learning to love myself, was accepted, and that acceptance changed everything: I realized I could start where I was and keep growing.
Two and a half years ago I took a leap of faith and moved to Atlanta to pursue being a full-time artist. Atlanta welcomed me with open doors and unexpected opportunities. After attending a photography and modeling networking event I began modeling; to me modeling is another form of art; an extension of storytelling and collaboration that complements my visual practice. After two years of focused work and perseverance, I won the Mac Ambassador Award at a modeling and runway competition and was shortly after signed by AI Model Management here in Atlanta.
Professionally I’ve spent the last four years committing to my work, consistently applying to shows and expanding my voice. That momentum led to a dream I hadn’t imagined possible: curating my first art show. What began as a planned solo show became an inclusive exhibition with five other artists because inclusion feels essential to the way I work.
My first curated exhibition, Seguimos Aqui | a Puerto Rican Art Show at Mom Said It’s Fine, drew over 200 RSVPs and felt like a celebration of community, survival, and creative persistence. I’m grateful for the mentors, friends, and cities that opened doors for me, and I move forward focused on collaboration, honest storytelling, and continuing to build space for Puerto Rican narratives in art.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Not smooth at all.
My first struggle was the reality of being a migrant kid raised by a single mother working as a pharmacy tech to support three kids on a tiny salary and almost no government help. Mi mama did everything she could and I give her so much credit, but growing up inside that pressure taught me how deep and sticky generational hardship can be.
The largest challenge has been my mental health. I started to self‑harm at thirteen and spent years in and out of mental health facilities between sixteen and twenty‑two after multiple suicide attempts. I’ve always a been sensitive person, and the more self‑aware I became the more at war I felt with myself—burdened by personal pain and the weight of the world. Recovery has been messy, slow, and ongoing but I’m so grateful to those who have stuck by my side and wanted the best for me.
After only practicing music for years, visual art came back into my life in the midst of that crisis. While in one of those institutions we weren’t allowed brushes, so I finger‑painted, and a tech told me she thought I was gifted and begged me to stop harming myself so I could do more with my life. Looking back I realized she was more so talking about me as a person because honestly those paintings were trash! Anyways, that moment was everything: someone saw me beyond my worst moments and pushed me toward creation. That nudge became a lifeline and the start of a real practice.
Those years taught me resilience, humility, and why community matters. They made me resourceful and fiercely protective of spaces that let people show up as they are. I still carry scars, but those struggles are why my work exists; making and sharing art became a way to survive, witness, and keep moving forward.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am an artist and a model. I create interdisciplinary pieces but primarily model and paint with acrylic on canvas. When it comes to painting I’m known for my neo‑expressionist style and my line of Puerto Rican art, and I also sculpt with paper‑mâché and air‑dry clay—the red Vejigante mask featured is paper‑mâché. For modeling I love runway and commercial work, especially when I get to collaborate with eccentric designers, but my real passion is editorial because I get to be super creative in my posing; the weirder the better.
I’ve even coordinated shoots of my own, including ones that pair my art with fashion, and it feels so freeing to build that world. Once I got over a lot of my insecurities I became unstoppable. One of the biggest things I tell people is that everything I can do, they can do too; you don’t have to have it all together to start, you just have to put your all into it and keep going.
What I’m most proud of is who I became despite all the adversity: finding healthy ways to cope, overcoming mental health and self‑image struggles, taking the painful but necessary leap to move away from family and friends back home, and showing up to that first networking meeting that changed everything. I recently left my full‑time digital marketing job to make room for modeling and my art career, and since then my first art show happened, I was booked for a major music video and an Athlete’s Foot commercial, and now this interview! Things are slowly but surely still coming together, but I’m proud of my determination and I really feel like it’s all moving in the right direction.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
(answered in first question)
Pricing:
- Prints start at $10
- Original Paintings start $333
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.linktr.ee/alegondia
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alegondia/ and https://www.instagram.com/alegondiastudios/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alegondia/
Image Credits
Isaias Sanchez @visualsofisa and Kelcey Reed @kelceyshotit
