Alicia Villegas-Rolon is a contemporary Chicana artist and teacher. Her work is guided by the process of painting people in her life and community, believing painting is akin to documenting. She is like many artists who teach; a person between roles easily navigating both - student then teacher back and forth. As a child of Mexican immigrant parents who arrived in Los Angeles in the late 60's and never left, Alicia was born in LA and grew up in the suburbs of the San Gabriel Valley where she experienced first hand the dynamic and changing neighborhoods of the 80's and 90's. She along with her 6 other siblings played out in the street with friends until the street lights came on, watched Latino families replace white ones, listened to 80's & 90's English and Spanish music, learned to dance to 50's swing and Cumbias from her dad, MTV and as a member of a party crew in the 90's and the vices of drugs and alcohol associated with it on the weekends while attending college during the week. Alicia was the first in her family to earn an AA and BA degree in Fine Art and most recently an MFA in Drawing and Painting in 2017. She has traveled as far as Cambodia as well as several places in the US and Mexico. Alicia plans on continuing to teach, travel, learn and garden along side her husband Roberto and her pets.