Art as (Life) Therapy

Martine Gutierrez is a visual and performance artist who explores identity in a multitude of ways through various media, including billboard campaigns and films.

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Women's Health spoke to Gutierrez to get a glimpse inside the mind of the artist and to understand how she continues to generate creative statements about our culture that make you stop, think, and reassess your own relationship with the world around you.

WH: Tell us more about your background. Did you always know you wanted to be a professional artist?
MG: I struggled in school, academically and socially. I remember having so much frustration with authority figures. I would skip class to hitchhike, get in fights with students who harassed me because I dyed my hair and dressed differently. "Being yourself" often means being alone. The one place I felt accepted was in the arts. My mother understood how important it was for my confidence and put me in every arts program available.

My adolescence was an Olympic renaissance; I studied everything from dance to painting, life drawing to darkroom photography. Art became the tool to articulate what language could never express, permission to cultivate my own definition of self. I didn't know being a fine artist was even a viable option-I thought art was something you died doing in destitution, like Vincent van Gogh.

WH: You're a first-generation American on your father's side, but your mother is from the United States. How did your heritage influence you artistically when you were growing up?