Artist Biography

Artist GONZO247
Website: https://www.gonzo247.com/
Social Media: @GONZO247

Artist Biography
Mexican-American artist Mario Figueroa, Jr., artistically known as GONZO247, was born in Houston, TX, on August 7, 1972. GONZO247 is a self-made creative force locally, regionally, and internationally recognized as a multidisciplinary contemporary artist and identified as a
Houston pioneer in the graffiti and street art movements. He was first exposed to art as a kid in the late 1970s through family outings that required driving by a landmark mural titled The Rebirth of
Our Nationality. Although always creative while in grade school, GONZO247 became driven about choosing art as a career in the early 1990s and focused on volunteering, working, and participating in many local hometown art community events and activities to gain access to the art world and make up for not being able to afford a more traditional art and college education. He also regularly networked with other artists with a graffiti background through mail to gain knowledge about other art communities throughout the United States. In 1990, he painted his first public, privately paid, and sanctioned mural to promote his Texan pride during the 16th annual G7 Economic
Summit hosted in Houston. At the same time, he was on a larger mission. He spent most of his early career showcasing and educating the local community on non-traditional forms of art, specifically graffiti art, the visual language of Hip Hop culture, while at the same time pushing his artistic boundaries. GONZO247 established a Houston Wall Of Fame (a legal wall to paint). He produced a 1990s video series titled Aerosol Warfare, dedicated to showcasing all elements of Hip Hop. Other accomplishments include running a graffiti and street art gallery, Aerosol Warfare Gallery, that exhibited artists in the non-traditional art forms. The gallery was co-owned and self-funded to give his peers a platform to emerge and use as a catapult into the
local art community.

GONZO247 continued to evolve, promoting and nurturing the idea of acceptance for spray-paint-based art. He became a prominent Houston art icon and finally started to land larger commissions around 2008 - 2011. In 2011, commissioned by the Houston Public Library, he painted a mural in the downtown underground parking garage spanning 20,000 square feet. His years of active participation in the Houston art community and promotion of his hometown began to award him the opportunity to take on a more official role as a visual and cultural arts Houston ambassador. He designed and painted the iconic Houston Is... mural, the first City of Houston-sanctioned street art of its kind, commissioned by The Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau (GHCVB) in 2013.

Art has taken GONZO247 to many places throughout the United States, Nigeria, Mexico, and Norway, and future exciting projects planned in Taiwan. In 2014, his art exhibited at SCOPE Miami through a Red Bull sponsorship. In 2015, he partnered up with MARCO Museo in Monterrey, Mexico and conducted an arts workshop working with local youth on a mural out in the community. In 2018, on behalf of Houston First Corporation, he designed and painted a mural in Stavanger, Norway celebrating international partnerships and the ONS (Offshore Northern Seas) event. In addition to public and private art commissions, GONZO247 has sold works of art from his studio to collectors who live locally, regionally, and internationally. He is a natural educator, has mentored and inspired many through the arts while Houston, his travels, and exposure to all cultures continue to inspire his work.

GONZO247 has received many awards and accolades. He is in The History of American Graffiti book (2011);
received Congressional Recognition from Member of Congress Sheila Jackson Lee for Arts in Community in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month (2018); received the Houston Metro Hispanic Heritage Month award for Cultural and Historic Trailblazers (2018); awarded a City of Houston Proclamation on September 27, for his artistic efforts and education in Houston (2016); received a City of Houston Proclamation on September 18, as part of the Mayor's Hispanic Heritage Award for Art in Community (2018); co-awarded, with Harris County, Preservation Houston's Good Brick Martha Peterson Award for his efforts on re-painting and preserving a prominent 1973 mural, the same one he once admired from afar as a child, by Artist Leo Tanguma, titled, The Rebirth of Our Nationality located in East End Houston.