Mark Gonzales

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Mark Gonzales in the movie Gummo.

Mark Gonzales (born June 1, 1969), also known as "The Gonz", is a professional skateboarder and artist. He is known in the skateboarding world as the pioneer of street skateboarding, currently skateboarding's most popular form.

Gonzales arrived on the skateboarding scene at age 15 with a more modern approach to street skating and made the cover of Thrasher Magazine's November 1984 issue,riding an Alva board who he was sponsored by at the time. He was soon to be picked up for sponsorship by a new company with big ideas,called Vision Skateboards. ^[1]

Mark Gonzales on the October 2001 cover of Big Brother magazine

In 1986, the first major gap was cleared with Gonzales's ollie at Embarcadero in San Francisco(see Thrasher,September '86). So historical was this incident for skateboarding, it became forever known as the "Gonz Gap" and helped make Embarcadero a popular location for skateboarders. ^[1] Also in 1986, Gonzales, together with Natas Kaupas, was the first person to skate handrails, thus cementing his contribution to street skating's early to intermediate stages. He became the first person to skate in switch stance in 1987. ^[1]

Gonzales went on to further influence skateboarding as it modernized with the 1991 video Video Days, by Blind skateboards (a skateboard company he created around 1989). The name Blind was an intentional slight to his old sponsor, Vision.

Gonzales has also established a parallel career as an artist, having shown at the Alleged Gallery in New York and various galleries worldwide. He recently had an exhibit featuring collaborative works with Christian Hosoi at The Journal gallery in New York City. He also designs the 'Gonzo Cuntry' clothing line available in Japan and t-shirts for UARM. Some of his fans include Donald Trump and P. Diddy, both of whom have collections of his artwork. ^[1]

He has been in a few movies, including Harmony Korine's cult film Gummo, where he wrestles a chair.

He has published a book called Broken Poems and in 2006 he was awarded the Legend Award by Transworld Skateboarding^[2].

In 2007 he published a skateboarding video called Gnar Gnar that was shot with an old VHS camcorder and was limited to only 1000 VHS copies^[3].

Today he is sponsored by: Krooked Skateboarding (a company he runs), Spitfire Wheels, Independent Truck Company, Fourstar Clothing, and Adidas skate shoes.