ON VIEW
STILL HERE
AN EXHIBITION OF WORKS BY RACHEL GONZALES
Opening April 17, 2026
The Lanecia A. Rouse Gallery is delighted to announce Still Here, a solo exhibition of works by Houston-based artist, Rachel Gonzales, curated by Maria Oran.
Informed by the artist’s experience with loss and grief, Gonzales uses painting as a form of meditation, questioning the relationships between spiritual and physical presence, time, and nostalgia. Through the use of whimsical and natural forms, Gonzales presents a series of works that draw connections between nature and spirit, offering an intimate invitation to glimpse into her lived experience. Read more about this exhibition in the curatorial statement:
“Still Here by Rachel Gonzales invites you into a world where the mundane takes a back seat to the sublime. It’s an exploration of impermanence, love and embodied memories that shift and reappear over time, affirming that what is lost may still be profoundly present.
The passing of her father, whose parting words, “Maglalakad lang ako”–which loosely translates to “I am just going for a stroll”– becomes a guiding philosophy throughout the work as both a farewell and a blessing, offering a framework through which loss is just a continuation rather than an end. Drawing from the experiences of anticipated and sudden passings, she reflects on those who were unable to say goodbye, reimagining how their presence might persist.
Nature is the site of connection, where the spiritual and material meet. Figures appear as whimsical, symbolic forms: white butterflies, a dandelion, light rain and heart shaped clouds. These motifs embody loved ones who visit and anchor the artist to the spirit realm. Alongside these gestures are moments of stillness, drawn from places such as Nunobiki Falls and Moerenuma Park, where Gonzales reflects on time, and nostalgia. In her work, physical landscapes are not fixed but live continually reshaped by the memory of a place.
Still Here by Rachel Gonzales is a meditation on the fragile space between presence and absence rooted in an emotional realm where the overwhelm of daily life is interrupted by grief, memory and the sublime. Working across gouache, ink and oil, Gonzales creates expressive compositions that speak to the unpredictable nature of the lived experience, where the ephemeral and the tangible quietly intertwine.”
— Maria Oran, Guest Curator
About the artist.
Rachel Gonzales
Rachel Gonzales is a Filipino American contemporary fine artist based in Houston, Texas. Her life's work focuses on reclaiming the female gaze as a powerful lens to see beyond the physical and access the formless, emotional experience of being human. With a background in architecture and practice in fine art and mysticism, she paints inner landscapes with sharp spatial perception and an intuitive understanding of all things felt, unseen and unspoken. Grief is the recurring theme that continually guides and reshapes her creative practice.
She has fulfilled public and private commissions, featured in juried exhibitions and has exhibited at the McNay Art Museum (2021). Her largest installation Portal of Healing (2021) was documented as part of Rice University’s Houston Asian-American Archives as a collective response to death and social unrest during the Covid-19 pandemic.
About the curator.
Maria Oran
Maria Oran is a Houston based interior designer with a background in architecture and art history. Her work focuses primarily on hospitality where she’s had a hand in creating and shaping social spaces across the city, including some of Houston’s most celebrated restaurants and bars. The tension between old and new, order and imperfection, and how that contrast shapes meaningful human experience is at the core of Oran’s approach. She designs with an emphasis on connection, complexity, and lived experience. In addition to her design practice, she has contributed to exhibitions by the AIA Women in Architecture Houston committee, and the Community Design Resource Center at the University of Houston. Originally from Venezuela, Maria lives and works in Houston .