Today we’d like to introduce you to Marcela Alarcón López.
Hi Marcela, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Yes! well, I was born in Chihuahua but lived in México City, Estado de México and briefly in Queretaro before I moved to Tijuana at 19 years old with my mom and sister. When we arrived I was told I had to study something in college but didn’t really felt like doing it (I never enjoyed school). In the end I got a very good scholarship and studied psychology. I figured “I might aswell learn something about myself”. It made sense to me also because I was diagnosed with BPD and didn’t like that! jaja so I was really interested in critiquing the biomedical model in an effective way jaja.
I worked in several rehab centers and clinics while studying and enjoyed being a counselor for some years. I started my training as a psychoanalist and other specialities focused in clinical psychology.
At the time I was living in a very small and cheap place in Playas de Tijuana and my upstairs neighbor was an artist. Fernando. I remember him very quiet and misterious and the landlord would let him pay rent with paintings. He was older, 45 or 50 years old. I started painting in my free time and would show him some work and he was very nice to me. He advised me to never quit my job so I could paint what I wanted and not what I had to, like him. He had a teen son and used to paint amazing darth vaders to sell in the streets to pay for his stuff and education. It was tough, he was very weary. But I was very young and a rebel and thought “anyways we both live here in the same place, he can do it i can” and I quitted my job with no plan. I was unemployed for like 3 months until the opportunity came to work at a museum in Tijuana and of course I took it. It was there where I learned everything! well, almost everything jaja. I loved it there because we were paid to learn history, art history, contemprorary art, etc. I got the chance to listen to so many artists, curators and passionate people. I was only a host and guide in galleries for a year before the pandemic came.
During Covid pandemic, like many people I lost everything. My job – I had to quit after medical difficulties because of an abortion-, my apartment, a long relasionship, the link with my family, I didn’t even had a bank account!
I hitted rockbottom. But then I found my people.
In a very crazy succesion of events I ended up living in a ranch at the outskirts of Tijuana with two unknown guys to me. They ended up being very caring loving and creative individuals. They would make and teach music to some children (it was only like 10 people out there in nature near the ranch) and I ended up painting again. I felt free. Free from everything and besides the material difficulties I had now a connection with god/ nature/ source however you wanna call it.
I then started a vegan cheese small buisness that enabled me to sustain my artistic practice. I went back to teaching at uni, I would make some psychological evaluations here and there and other gigs that sustained me and my cat.
In 2021 an opportunity came from a gallery in San Diego and it changed my life. The Front gallery would pay us for painting, exhibiting and learning from stablished artists in the border during a year. After that I just continued learning, painting and trying to make room for myself in this harsh industry. I sometimes think its all about how you get up after a big punch, but mostly I think its about the people you get to share the process with. I am surrounded by amazing loving intersting people…friends, my sister, my mom, colleagues even my distant father that have made me who I am.
Here is a brief bio of my work as an artist:
Formerly a psychotherapist, I blend my artistic curiosity with my clinical experience and psychological interests. I’ve developed a wavering interest in the arts, influenced by a fluctuating background in the arts, counseling, food and sex industry. The paintings and sculptures I make are characterized by playfully dramatic motifs at times, experimental contrasts between the figurative and the conceptual, and the use of diverse supports such as cement, acrylics, food, and transparencies in dialogue with the borders that surround me (historical, physical, psychological, etc).
I was selected as an artist-in-residence at Arts District Liberty Station in San Diego, California (2025-2026), at Ranchito Aurora Residency in Tecate, Mexico during 2023, and in the New Native Narratives apprenticeship program at The Front Arte y Cultura in San Ysidro, California (2021-2022). My work has been exhibited in various galleries and group exhibitions along the US-Mexico border, including exhibitions featured during San Diego Design Week and World Design Capital in 2024, at the Price Center in La Jolla, The Front Gallery, the San Diego Mesa College Gallery, Museo Bonita, Ediciones Caradura, and La Casa Azul Tijuana, among others.
This year I’ve shown my work in a two woman show at NTC’s Foundation Gallery 201 at Arts District Liberty Station in San Diego, California, as well as my first solo exhibition at Ediciones Caradura Cafeteoria in Tijuana, Mexico and a collective exhibition at the City’s Gallery Galería de la Ciudad for Tijuana’s 137 anniversary.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has been a very crazy road. Most of the time things felt very chaotic and unrelated but at the end of the road somehow everything ended up making sense. Some of the main struggles along the way were financial and related to mental health issues. A lot of instability but also facing these challenges on my own and sometimes along discrimination or social challenges related to changing professional fields.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a full time artist, I specialize in acrylic painting. The thing I am most proud of is that I didn’t have the opportunity to have a formal/academic or even technical training. Everything I’ve been able to paint and do with my creative work has been self taught but mostly I have learned from the people around me: colleagues, peers at different jobs in different industries, friends and other artists. Everything I have learned has been in the real world, learning while working at museums, galleries, in the streets, collabs, and being open to every experience.
Now that things have started to work out for me as an artist I feel very grateful an proud to be able to have my first studio in San Diego during the ADLS residency, being able to show my work in Tijuana as well and I just hope to continue learning, growing as an artist and challenging myself.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
I have many memories with my mom and my sister. Hugging them. Car racing with mom. Playing under the rain. I used to love Fridays because we would do this game in which every week one of us would decide what we would do on that Friday and we all would get along and do whatever it was that person wanted. I used to love seeing my mom letting my sister eat like a dog during meals, or letting us dress HOWEVER we liked, or dancing everyday while we would clean or do homework… We used to go a lot to the movies, every Wednesday actually, and eat a whole meal inside the room! it was wild.
Pricing:
- I can work on commission with flexible pricing/budget
- I have artwork available, pricing depends on every piece
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mmmmmmala.mal/
