Kayúm Ma'ax

Nahá, Selva Lacandona, Ocosingo, Chiapas, México, 1962.

Ma’ax maintains a traditional life in the Lacandona Jungle, he is an explorer of nature and Mayan-Lacandon cosmological symbology, thus becoming a born historian and archaeologist of his people.

Ma’ax began painting the flora and fauna, with an extraordinary particular technique, which he developed from the interior of the jungle. To see a work by Ma’ax is to enter into an encounter of jungle interconnection (the Lacandona jungle), that is, the close relationship between human beings-animals-divine beings – and the earth.

Painting is his means of information that allows him to represent the oral tradition in each of his pictorial works, safeguarding the Mayan/Lacandon memory.

He is recognized for his enormous wealth of knowledge of the oral tradition and spiritual wisdom of his people. He was awarded the Chiapas Prize in 1992 and has more than 30 years in the practice of art as a proudly self-taught painter, who has learned from his inspiration by animated nature.

Exhibitions

• Outsider Art Fair,  XVIII virtual edition, Paris, France, 2021.
• Mayan and Zoque interpretations of the (In)visible pandemic, virtual exhibition, Galería MUY, 2020.
• Material Art Fair, Mexico City, 2019.
• Futures, tradition and globalization, Galería MUY, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, 2019.
• Reflections of change in memory, Galería MUY,  San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, 2015.
• Pictorial exhibition, Museo Etnológico, Madrid, Spain, 1993.
• Pictorial exhibition, Centro Cultural de Siqueiros, Mexico City, 1992.
• Pictorial exhibition, Museo de Na-Bolom, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, 1988 y 1990.