[3] González grew up in Colombia during the 1940s and 50s, while the country was plagued with violence and war due to the social and political upheaval known as La Violencia.

After one of González's friends and mentors, Marta Traba pressed the Jury to reconsider their decision, the painting was not only accepted, but Gonzáles won a special prize for her work, that eventually helped launch her career.

[2] After accompanying her husband who is an architect to a hardware store in the 1970s, she began her work on various pieces of store-bought furniture that would generally be found in middle-class households earlier in the century.

[9] One of González's most well known and earliest works depicts a young couple standing holding hands with one other and a bouquet of flowers with a slight smile on their faces.

This painting was based on a photo that originally appeared in the press of a couple who commissioned a professional photographer to take their portrait before jumping off the dam of the Sisga on the outskirts of Bogotá.

During this time she produced a series of ink drawings on the same theme, that were tabloid photos of crimes of passion and political murders as well as advertisements for everything from bodybuilding to headache cures.

González intentionally chose this particular work by Leonardo because of its popularity in Colombian culture, this image was commonly placed above the main entrance door as a good-luck charm against thieves.

[11] In this case, she intentionally takes all of the shadows and duller colors that made this work more European, and animated it more in hopes of making it more uniquely Latin American.

In this work, González placed her own painting of da Vinci's Mona Lisa where the mirror would be on a very large and elaborate antique coat rack.