Abigail Gómez Latine visual artist, teaching artist, arts advocate, and the owner and artist at Pretty Girl Painting, LLC. She was born in New York, and has lived in Virginia for the past 25 years. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Virginia Tech in 2007, concentrating on found object sculpture and recycled art. She also studied at Santa Reparata International School of Art in Florence, Italy in 2003.  In December 2015 she completed the requirements for a Master of Fine Arts in painting from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco CA.

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Abigail teaches art in the community through Pretty Girl Painting, Shenandoah Valley Discovery Museum, Fremont Street Nursery, and Arte Libre VA. She is also a Professor of Art and Design at Shenandoah University.

 

Abigail was appointed by Governor McAuliffe to serve as a Commissioner on the Virginia Commission for the Arts, representing the 10th Congressional District from 2016-2021, where she finished her service as Chair. Nationally, she serves as Co-Chair of NASAA’s People of Color Affinity Group, and is a committee member of the Arts Administrators of Color Network’s Cousin’s Regime.  She just began service on the Executive Committee of Alternate Roots, a regional arts organization.  Locally, she also serves as a Director on the Sinclair Health Clinic Board in Winchester.

 

She received two Fellowships from NALAC in 2016 for the Advocacy Leadership Institute in Washington DC and the NALAC Leadership Institute in San Antonio TX. Abigail is also a COIL Fellow, having completed the Barzinji Institute’s Collaborative Online International Learning fellowship program in 2023.  She has served as a panelist for state, regional, national, and international grantmaking organizations since 2016. She has also been a presenter and panelist at state and national arts conferences. Along with her fine art practice and organizational work, Abigail facilitates community mural projects and cultural tours in the US, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and in Cuba.

 

Most recently Abigail founded Arte Libre VA, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts organization that empowers Latinx/e, Black, and Youth of Color through equitable access to quality arts education and programming.  At Arte Libre VA, Abigail serves as the Director and Chief Visionary, Maestra Principal.  She facilitates and runs the visual arts based programing offered through Arte Libre VA, which is all tuition-free.  She manages paid internships for Youth of the Global Majority, as well as the management and training of Teaching Artists and Assistant Teaching Artists, all of whom are paid.  Through Arte Libre VA, Abigail has managed and facilitated over 30 collaborative and participatory public art projects and murals in the Northern Shenandoah Valley.

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Gomez’s vibrant artwork is in a number of private collections around the United States and abroad. Her artwork has been featured in exhibitions at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, the Virginia Eye Institute in Richmond, and the Cannery Gallery in San Francisco, as well as in other group and solo shows in Virginia, New York, California, Italy and Cuba.