Raul Gonzalez

Artist, Muralist, Mural Renovator, Community Arts and Youth Leader,  Mictan Murals, Los Angeles California, Belize.

Raul Gonzalez is a muralist and illustrator residing and working in Beliz. In addition to being an artist, Gonzalez works with non-profit organizations focusing on empowering youth voice on a number of topics through art, advocacy, and community outreach.

Carlos Callejo

Artist, Chicano Muralist and Renovator, Community Mural Activist,  Los Angeles California 

eeeWho are my mentors? Once I started coming right out of high school, and actually during high school, I was being exposed to your Tres Grandes; Orozco, Siqueiros, and Rivera. I was growing up with a lot of other artists. I started being influenced by other artists. Some of them would be considered my peers, so in some ways we were feeding off each other. The Streetscapers, David Botello, Wayne Healey, Judy Baca, Willie Herrón; we were sort of learning off of each other. Some of them may be more my maestros, but no I think they were more my peers because we were learning off of each other.

Mario Torero

ARtivist, Chicano Muralists, Community Arts Educator

Mario Torero is an artist and activist, most known over the last fifty years for an extensive body of socially conscious mural work produced in different cities throughout the United States and around the world. With a long history of involvement in local and global arts and progressive movements, Mario has become an iconic Chicano artist with deep roots in the San Diego cultural arts community. Torero is a co-founder of San Diego’s Chicano Park. He has contributed more than twenty standing murals and three sculptures; other murals devoted to social awareness continue to appear in different parts of the county. Working as a community muralist, he always begins his work in a space by blessing the earth where he stands, the ancestors who came before on the land, and the ancestors of all the immigrant peoples who come from all of the cultures that mix together to become us, the mixed-race Raca of Chicanos, Blacks, whites, Filipinos, etc.  His approach in co-creating artworks in the neighborhoods and spaces where he is invited helps manifest a shared reflective vision of an identity brewing below the surface of the concrete. Mario is also a founding and continuing member of Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park and was a co-founding board member and Arts Commissioner for the San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture. Over the years, he has led several national and international artistic and cultural exchanges. 

Sarah Bella Mondragon

Multi-Media Event Producer, Web Designer, Producer

Sarah Bella Mondragon is a multimedia artist, activist, and digital storyteller. She is the artistic instigator behind the Our Walls Speak Event. The mission of the Barrio Artists Partnership is to sponsor events, festivals, and exchanges between arts and culture organizations whose stages are street corners, yes, that includes street parades. Sarah works as a freelance project manager, arts administrator, and web media designer for several local nonprofit Arts organizations, including Mundo Gallery and Gente Unida, a human rights organization focusing on the San Diego/Tijuana border region. She produced the podcast Buen Hombre, Magnificent Mujer for Gente Unida. Sarah grew up in the neighborhood adjacent to Logan Heights, Golden Hill, supporting local nonprofit arts and environmental organizations by bringing different organizations together to share resources and find common ground. Last fall, she worked with artists Mario Torero, Sal Barajas, and Salvador “Queso” Torres to negotiate with San Diego City Schools to prevent the further destruction of murals. She collaborated with the Logan Heights CDC to create a safe and neutral territory for different parts of the Logan Heights Community to express their opinions. Sarah Bella Mondragon has worked with arts and culture organizations in Central America and Brazil and speaks Spanish and Portuguese. She is also a spoken word poet and Capoeira Brazilian Martial Arts teacher.