San Cristóbal de Las Casas. Chiapas, México
Artworks
Passion fruits
Oil on canvas
100 x 50 cm
2019
“In 1994, when the struggle began, we were taking refuge in a house. While we were playing, we could see planes in the sky dropping bombs, but they dropped the most on the hill. One day I asked my sister what those things the planes were dropping were. She replied that they were ‘granadillas.’ I got really scared, and from that moment on I was afraid of granadillas because I thought they were what the planes were dropping. I was terrified of them. My sister would throw one at me as a joke, and I would start crying.”
Omen
Oil on canvas
90 x 60 cm
2019
“I remember the pains of my childhood, with the other children who were hiding somewhere in Aldama. There were many of us playing, but many got sick, and since we were all together, there was no hygiene. Every night the owl would come and start scratching the walls—maybe it knew a child was going to die. I placed the owl in the artwork to represent the symbol of death, and the clock that announced the hour had come. Many children got sick with stomach infections and later passed away because there was no one to care for them.”
Collective Work
Oil on canvas
84 x 56 cm
2019
“We used to work collectively when we were part of the [Zapatista] organization. The women would shell corn together in a group. My little brother and I would follow our mom because we wanted to be with her while she worked.”
Goose
Oil on canvas
110 x 69.5 cm
2020
“This piece arises from a memory from 1994, when my mother hurriedly took us away because my father was a leader. Then the soldiers entered our house, and we went to take refuge in Aldama, in Campana Che’en. That’s why the chickens and the geese were left behind.”
The Noon Bath
Pencil Drawings
50 x 35 cm
2019
“Now that I am a father, I see that my daughter loves to bathe, but our conditions are different. I was bathed standing up with cold water, while she is bathed sitting down with hot water.”
The pigs' bath
Pencil Drawings
50 x 35 cm
2019
“I remember that when we were refugees in Kamteal Ukum, my mother would say: ‘It’s time to bathe the pigs.’ When we heard this, we would run out because she was referring to us. They would catch us by force to bathe us, and the water was very cold.”
The great happiness
Oil on canvas
84.5 x 60 cm
2020
“When the uprising happened and we were refugees, they brought us food to eat. Since we were children, and maybe because of hunger, I would see the cans of beans as huge, and as I grew up, I realized they weren’t that big, it was just because of the hunger that I saw them that way.”
The carrier
Oil on canvas
75.5 x 50.7 cm
2020
“When we were in the movement, on one occasion we had to take refuge in Aldama, my father helped carry several sick people and also children to reach the refuge.”
Carrying his corn
Oil on canvas
75 x 50 cm
2020
“In the days when the pandemic began in Larráinzar, those who had money bought sacks of corn, as a sack of corn cost a thousand pesos, but people who couldn’t afford it only bought packages of maseca.”
her sneakers.
Oil on canvas
100 x 57. 2 cm
2020
“I spoke with a friend, I asked her how the coronavirus affected them, and she told me that her dad ‘hung up his sneakers.’ He passed away, thank God we are still here. And we’re better prepared than ever, if the coronavirus comes, I’ll fight it with my slingshot.”
Disturbances
Oil on canvas
84.8 x 65.3 cm
2020
“I use conceptual realism with rhetorical figures where I portray what happened in my town, San Andrés Larráinzar, during these times of contingency. From the beginning, people supported fumigating public spaces. But due to the bad comments from other towns, social media, and the successive deaths of people, people started changing their minds and thought that fumigation caused death, and that everything they sprayed was the coronavirus! For this reason, the riots and destruction started, the burning of vehicles, and always looking for someone to blame. In this way, I represent the disturbances.”
The Lord of Death
Watercolor on cotton paper
72.5 x 53.5 cm
2020
“This little group of children are students from the school. On the left side, there are three teachers. The children were very playful, they didn’t understand or obey. These teachers had no patience and they hit them. They had a stick and hit them on the buttocks and on the head. And the children began to lose their sense, they had comprehension problems. Then the mother went to complain to the officer because her children had been harmed. They decided to fire the teachers until a new teacher arrived, and she spoke to them, took them under the trees, gave them apples, spoke to them kindly, and prayed a lot to God to help these children understand, and so they improved, they started to understand. The teacher realized that the children had nahuales – a fox, and when they are foxes, they are very playful. They are just having fun. That’s why they had that attitude. So, the teacher changed all their nahuales, and after changing their nahuales, they became obedient children and improved. That teacher worked with them for many years, almost thirty years, and ended up preparing two of them very well.”
Shooting the virus queen
Watercolor on cotton paper
37 x 56 cm
2020
“The work captured are stories from the Zapatista comrades. As they say, now they fight against an invisible enemy, one that sees no religion or political party. We are all fighting against an enemy, which is the coronavirus.”
The ear of corn
Watercolor on cotton paper
49 x 34.2 cm
2020
“A lot of panic was created among the population when Covid first arrived in Mexico, basic products increased in price, and corn was one of them.”
The Most Holy Eucharist
Watercolor on cotton paper
49 x 33.8 cm
2020
“After the death of many people from San Andrés due to the coronavirus, the San Andrés community requested to take out the Holy Eucharist, along with a priest, to bless and purify the streets. After the purification and the faith of the people, the successive deaths stopped.”
The last supper
Oil on canvas
170 x 230 cm
2021
In progress
“On December 31, 1993, the night before the uprising, a mass was held. The militants planned how they would enter San Cristóbal. After the meeting, everyone socialized, there was food and music, for some it was their last supper, as many would not return to their homes with their families. The community was in the struggle at all times with the faith of God, and that is why I represented that God was also Zapatista in the fight, as people felt that God would accompany them in the struggle.”