Gloria Martinez-Granados

“Hand and Labour” portrays a cross-stitched, photorealistic image of my father’s hand, each stitch a tribute to his brown skin tone, interwoven with the rich colors and textures of leather. As these threads suture the leather pieces together, their scent stirs deep memories within me.

I was born in León, Guanajuato, Mexico—the world’s shoe capital. One of my earliest memories is of my mother, grandmother, two older brothers, and three cousins sitting in a circle, laboring over leather pieces, with black trash bags filled with well-crafted shoes ready to take back to the factory. I would plead to join them, but they said I was “too small to work.” It was through their hands, alongside my father’s work in the United States, that we continued forward, holding onto the hope of one day being reunited.

Gloria Martinez-Granados is a Phoenix, Arizona-based artist. Born in Guanajuato, Mexico, she migrated to the United States of America with her family at 8 years old. Gloria is an interdisciplinary artist creating with indigenous practices, adding a contemporary approach by including printmaking, assemblage, installation and performance to the more traditional arts of beadwork and weaving. Through this process, she develops themes around identity, dreams, place, home, and land. This merges with her experience growing up undocumented in the United States and the legal limbo she lives day to day as a DACAmented person.

She is a former member of the all-women artist collective The Phoenix Fridas. In 2019 she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Printmaking from Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. In 2022 Gloria received the Sally and Richard Lehmann Emerging Artists Awards, and her work is currently exhibited at Phoenix Art Museum as part of “The Collection: 1960 - Now.”