CONTEMPORARY AND EMERGING
Artist's Studio Tours
VISUAL ARTISTS OF OAXACA
Sixteen voices of Oaxacan art - from the founding masters of Oaxaca's contemporary art movement to the emerging generation now carrying that legacy around the world.
We're delighted to share that all of the artists featured in this catalogue have generously agreed to open their studios to our guests during this special time - a rare privilege made possible by the close personal relationship between our dear friend and business partner, José Luis Bustamante, his father, and this remarkable community of Oaxacan artists.
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Studio visits are by appointment only and must be arranged in advance through our organizational team - please do not contact the artists directly. We want to be respectful of their time and creative space, and our team is happy to help coordinate a visit that fits your schedule.
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Full details on how to arrange a visit can be found at the end of this catalogue. Studio visits are complementary, except for transport, which can be arranged with the team.
José Villalobos
The architect who paints light - geometric abstraction inspired by the Oaxacan landscape
Born in 1950 in Ciudad Ixtepec, Oaxaca, José Villalobos studied architecture at UNAM before turning fully to painting. His abstract work, built from architectural planes, light and color, engages in dialogue with the influence of Rufino Tamayo and Francisco Toledo. Since his first traveling exhibition in 1984 ("Las aguas del río," at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes), Villalobos has exhibited across Mexico, the United States and Italy, including at the Palacio de Bellas Artes and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca (MACO), an institution he helped promote. His most recent exhibition, "Estancias de la luz" (Galería Quetzalli, 2021), brought together work created during the pandemic, exploring light, time and interior landscape.
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Website: josevillalobosl.com
Luis Zárate
A founding master of contemporary Oaxacan art - printmaking, oil, and Zapotec mythology
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Born in 1951 in Santa Catarina Cuanana, Oaxaca, Luis Zárate is one of the most internationally recognized Oaxacan painters. Largely self-taught -his main early references were Tamayo, Toledo and Nieto - he held his first solo exhibition in 1970 at the former Santo Domingo convent. In 1974 he won a scholarship to study in Paris, where he lived for thirteen years, training at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs and at Atelier 17. During his years in Europe he received numerous international painting prizes (Vitry, France, 1979; the Government of the Principality of Monaco, 1980; the Cagnes-Sur-Mer festival, 1982), before returning to Oaxaca in 1986. His work - moving between expressionism and abstraction, populated with local animals and Zapotec mythological figures - has appeared in more than fifty group shows and seven solo exhibitions across Spain, Germany, Singapore, Peru and Puerto Rico, among other countries, and is held in the collection of the Museo Ralli in Marbella, Spain.
Rubén Leyva
Master of abstract figurativism and co-founder of MACO
Born in Oaxaca City in 1953, Rubén Leyva is one of the most prolific painters and sculptors of his generation. Trained at the Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca, he worked alongside Francisco Toledo on several cultural projects, among them the founding of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca (MACO), where he now serves as president of the Friends association. His work - a personal visual language he describes as "abstract figurativism" - has been shown in more than forty solo and group exhibitions across the United States, Italy, England, Germany, Puerto Rico and Cuba, including a solo exhibition in New York marking the United Nations' 50th anniversary in 1995. That same year he received Oaxaca City's First Acquisition Prize in Fine Arts. Vibrant color, formal humor, and a constant fusion of drawing, printmaking, ceramics and bronze sculpture define his prolific career.
Alberto Aragón
Monumental sculpture between Oaxaca and Scandinavia - contemporary Baroque
Born in Oaxaca City in 1980, Alberto Aragón Reyes is a largely self-taught artist who trained with the stonemasons of Etla before traveling to Denmark, where he was welcomed into the workshop of celebrated sculptor Jens Galschiøt. There he collaborated on the sculptural ensemble "Tin Soldier, The Little Mermaid, Clumsy Hans" in Odense, and is the author of the "Monument of Duality" in Svendborg and of the "8 Venado Garra de Jaguar" monument, an emblem of the coastal municipality of Tututepec, Oaxaca. His painting, marked by a strong Baroque and tenebrist character, engages in dialogue with Caravaggio, Goya and Rembrandt, as well as with Oaxacan masters Tamayo, Toledo and Alejandro Santiago. He has taken part in sculpture symposiums in the Czech Republic and Denmark, collaborated on the public-art project "Defacing the Wall" in Palestine, and presented monumental projects at Art Basel Miami (2017). In 2024 his monumental exhibition "Procesión: Tiempo de Gigantes" was installed in front of Oaxaca's Cathedral.
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Instagram: @albertoaragonreyes - instagram.com/albertoaragonreyes
Sabino Guisu
The potter of smoke - art made with fire, honey and ash in tribute to Zapotec culture
Born in Juchitán de Zaragoza, Oaxaca, in 1986 into a family of potters, Sabino Guisu (whose name means "potter" in Zapotec) trained as a librarian and largely self-taught artist at the Instituto de Artes Gráficas de Oaxaca (IAGO), where he received direct mentorship from Francisco Toledo. He is known for a distinctive technique: the use of smoke, ash, honey, propolis, pollen and even bees as creative materials, through which he explores death, chance, and the spiritual rupture between the individual and their environment. He has exhibited in Norway, Japan, Germany and the United States, and presented his first solo show, "Fuego negro / Guí Yase," at the MAIA Contemporary gallery in Mexico City (2019). In 2022 his work was featured in the landmark exhibition "Arte de los pueblos de México" at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, and his monumental sculptural project "Cocijo" - a reinterpretation of the Zapotec rain deity - was exhibited alongside the Museo Nacional de Antropología.
Instagram: @sabinoguisu - instagram.com/sabinoguisu
Rolando Rojas
The earth painter of the Isthmus - more than 200 international exhibitions
Born on February 23, 1970, in Tehuantepec, Rolando Rojas combines training in architecture, restoration and fine arts - including studies under the Japanese-Oaxacan master Shinzaburo Takeda - into a painting practice that uses earth and natural pigments alongside oil, a technique he shares with the tradition of Tamayo. In 2001 he opened Taller de Grabado 910, a printmaking studio in Oaxaca City. His work, deeply tied to the memory of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and to Zapotec mythology - Tehuana women, animals and ancestral symbols - has taken him to more than 200 international exhibitions across Mexico, the United States, Europe and Asia. He recently presented "Trazos. Sueños en Oaxaca" in Katowice, Poland (2025), marking the opening of Mexico's Honorary Consulate in Silesia and Opole, and "El color de los sueños" at the Instituto Cervantes in Kraków (2026).
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Instagram: @rolandorojasmx - instagram.com/rolandorojasmx
Website: rolandorojaspintor.com
Ixrael Montes
The dream fisherman of the Costa Chica - printmaking and painting rooted in Mixtec and African art
Born on November 14, 1971, in San José de las Flores, Jamiltepec, on Oaxaca's Costa Chica, Ixrael Montes moved to the state capital at 19 to study visual art, specializing in printmaking and painting at the Taller de Artes Plásticas Rufino Tamayo under the guidance of master Shinzaburo Takeda. Over more than three decades, his work - shaped by African and Mixtec art, and populated with masks, fishermen, coastal animals and figures drawn from nahualism (shape-shifting spirit beliefs) - has been exhibited in Japan, Argentina and the United States, and is held in museums and public and private collections. He was awarded a Young Creators grant by the Instituto Oaxaqueño de la Cultura. In his own words, his painting works as "a portal" connecting him to the stories and legends of his home region.
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Instagram: @ixraelmontes - instagram.com/ixraelmontes Website: ixraelmontes.com
Rosendo Pinacho
A world-record ceramic mural - from Loxicha to Miami, by way of Paris
Born on May 19, 1972, in Candelaria Loxicha, Pochutla, Rosendo Pérez Pinacho trained at the UABJO School of Fine Arts under Shinzaburo Takeda, and later completed an artistic residency in Paris, deepening his study of the Impressionists and Delacroix. He is the creator of the largest ceramic mural produced by a Mexican artist abroad, installed at the Optima Towers development in Miami, Florida. His work - constellations, trees, marine life, and landscapes charged with memory - has been shown at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey (MARCO), The National Arts Club in New York, and the Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin, Texas, among many other venues in Mexico, the United States and Peru. He works with equal mastery in oil painting, drawing, ceramics and mural art.
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Instagram: @rpinacho - instagram.com/rpinacho. Website: rosendopinacho.com
Manuel Miguel
From the Zapotec countryside to the World Trade Center - painting and sculpture of "inner weaving"
Born on December 20, 1985, in Teococuilco de Marcos Pérez, a Zapotec community in Oaxaca's Sierra Norte - and also the birthplace of the celebrated Alejandro Santiago - Manuel Miguel began drawing by tracing lines in the dirt paths of his village with a stick. He had the privilege of training directly alongside established masters of Oaxacan art, including Alejandro Santiago, Máximino Javier, Rosendo Pinacho and Emiliano López, an experience that led him to develop his own visual language, which he calls "geometric costritubism," inspired by the idea of humans as weavers of emotion and connection. With more than 80 solo and group exhibitions in Japan, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, the United States, Canada, Costa Rica and Chile, Manuel Miguel recently took part in the Feria Internacional Arte Capital 2025 (World Trade Center, Mexico City) and the Feria de Arte Independiente in Madrid. His work spans painting - acrylic and oil - and sculpture in metal, ceramic, bronze, resin and reclaimed materials.
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Instagram: @manuelmiguel_art - instagram.com/manuelmiguel_art
Ivonne Kennedy
Urban geometries and invisible cities - an Oaxacan painter with international reach
Born in 1971 in Oaxaca City, Ivonne Kennedy is a largely self-taught, independently trained painter who began her artistic path in 1987 at the Casa de la Cultura de Oaxaca, later studying at the Taller de Artes Plásticas Rufino Tamayo and under muralist Gilberto Aceves Navarro. Her work centers on urban geometry and depopulated architectural landscapes - inspired in part by Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities" - inviting contemplation and stillness. She has held solo exhibitions in Mexico, the United States, Germany, the Czech Republic and Hungary, and her work has also been shown in Russia, Singapore, Indonesia, Cuba and Sweden. Kennedy has been honored by Oaxaca's Secretaría de las Culturas y Artes and named a Distinguished Citizen by the Oaxaca City Council; she is also the founder of the Arte Guenda collective, dedicated to spotlighting the work of women artists. Note: her name is spelled "Ivonne," though it is sometimes anglicized as "Yvonne."
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Instagram: @ivonnekennedy - instagram.com/ivonnekennedy
Alonso Chávez
A young master of oil painting and birds - creative freedom without limits
Born on November 15, 1996, in Mexico City, Alonso Chávez considers himself Oaxacan by upbringing and by heart, having lived in Oaxaca since the age of three. A graduate of the CEDART "Miguel Cabrera" arts school, he held his first two solo exhibitions in 2017, one of them at the Mexican Senate. Since then he has exhibited at venues including the plaza of the Palacio de Bellas Artes, Casa Ántica, the Teatro Macedonio Alcalá, and Oaxaca's Palacio Municipal ("Azares," 2018). Birds - thoroughly researched for their habitat, migration and breeding patterns - are a recurring element in his work, alongside clocks, compasses and natural motifs, in pieces that combine oil paint, gold leaf, automotive paint, resin and wax. Drawing on classical masters such as Michelangelo, Turner, Van Gogh and Rembrandt, as well as contemporary artists like Javier Marín and Jorge Marín, Chávez sees art as an absolute expression of freedom.
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Instagram: @a.chavez_art - instagram.com/a.chavez_art
Shinzaburo Takeda
The Japanese-Oaxacan master - 65 years of work and a teacher to generations
Born in 1935 in Seto, Japan, Shinzaburo Takeda is considered one of Oaxaca's most important artists, despite - or perhaps because of - his Japanese origins. Trained at the Tokyo University of Fine Arts, he traveled to Mexico in 1963 to study muralism with Armando Carmona and Luis Nishizawa at the Academia de San Carlos. In 1978 he arrived in Oaxaca, and since 1980 has chaired the Art Department at the Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca (UABJO), training generations of Oaxacan artists over more than 45 years - including Rolando Rojas, Ixrael Montes, Rosendo Pinacho and Israel Nazario, all featured in this selection. In 2012 Emperor Akihito awarded him the Order of the Sacred Treasure for his contributions to art and education; since 2008, Oaxaca's International Graphic Arts Biennial has borne his name in his honor. "I don't want to be Japanese, I want to give Oaxaca," Takeda has said of himself, describing himself as "Japanese-Oaxacan" and holding deep, paternal affection for his countless students.
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Instagram: @galeria.dearteshinzaburotakeda - instagram.com/galeria.dearteshinzaburotakeda
Pantaleón Ruiz
From the looms of Teotitlán to the galleries of San Francisco - textile transformed into painting
Born in 1974 in Teotitlán del Valle, a Zapotec community renowned for its textile tradition, Pantaleón Ruiz learned to weave alongside his father from the age of seven, using natural dyes such as cochineal red. At 14 he emigrated to San Francisco, California, where he lived for nearly fifteen years and discovered painting and sculpture, eventually working as a portrait artist. In his work - exhibited in galleries and museums across the United States, Germany and France - he fuses ancestral textile techniques with oil painting, graphite, encaustic on amate bark paper and linen, and sculpture in lead and bronze. In 2006 he received awards in sculpture, ceramics and graphic design from the Clackamas Fine Art Center in Oregon. His more than two-decade career was documented in the monograph "Pantaleón Ruiz: Trazo, Textura, Color" (Turner, 2023), with essays by Juan Villoro, Jorge Pech Casanova, Enrique Juncosa and Erik Castillo.
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Instagram: @pantaleonruizstudio - instagram.com/pantaleonruizstudio. Website: pantaleonruiz.com
Tomás Pineda
The bull-hunting painter - from the Isthmus to Chicago, between mythology and resilience
Born on August 5, 1968, in Chicapa de Castro, Juchitán, Tomás Pineda Matus learned to draw amid the Zapotec speech of his parents and the bulls his father tamed - images that would become a central motif in his work. A 1989 graduate of the Taller de Artes Plásticas Rufino Tamayo, he furthered his training in Guanajuato, Mexico City, Havana (Cuba) and Florence (Italy), studying also under Shinzaburo Takeda and Luis Nishizawa. Drawing inspiration from Picasso's Minotauromachy series, he developed a mythological bestiary - bulls, minotaurs - that engages with Jungian psychology and with Greek, Aboriginal Australian and African mythology, more than with explicit regional folklore. His work is held in the permanent collection of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Latinoamericano in Punta del Este, Uruguay, and has been exhibited in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Miami, Los Angeles, Argentina and Indonesia. He survived Guillain-Barré syndrome and relaunched his career with a mural in Chicago in 2012.
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Instagram: @tomaspinedart - instagram.com/tomaspinedart
Israel Nazario
The painter of trees - the Oaxacan landscape turned into aesthetic myth
Born on November 19, 1970, in Santa María Zacatepec, Putla de Guerrero, Israel Nazario is known as "the painter of little trees": his trees, dense with symbolism, have turned the Oaxacan landscape into an instantly recognizable motif - those familiar with his work say that upon seeing a tree, they remark, "there's a Nazario." A student of Shinzaburo Takeda, he taught drawing in UABJO's Bachelor's program in Plastic and Visual Arts from 2008 to 2010. In 1998 he received a scholarship from the Taller Rufino Tamayo, and in 1999 was selected for the First Paul Gauguin Painting and Printmaking Biennial. He has held solo and group exhibitions in Mexico, Japan, the United States, Argentina, Indonesia and Brazil. Of his own work, he has said: "I concluded that I wasn't going to contribute anything new to art history, but what I could do was find myself."​
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Instagram: @israelnazario - instagram.com/israelnazario
Luis Hampshire
Curator, educator, and painter of matter in transition - former director of MUPO
A visual artist, curator and educator, Luis Hampshire earned a degree in Art from the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana in Mexico City. He served as director of the Taller de Artes Plásticas Rufino Tamayo (2011–2013) and of the Museo de los Pintores Oaxaqueños, or MUPO (2013–2017), and currently teaches painting and contemporary art at the UABJO School of Fine Arts, as well as being a member of Mexico's National System of Creators. Together with Jessica Wozny, he co-founded the independent, nonprofit art space Ediciones Plan B. His painting - made with sustainable materials, oil, studio dust and assemblages of workshop residue - explores materiality, tradition and the symbolic fracture of the contemporary individual. His honors include the Acquisition Prize at the XVIII Rufino Tamayo Painting Biennial and two FONCA Young Creators grants. His most recent solo exhibition, "Cálidas Ruinas" (Galería Rufino Tamayo, Casa de la Cultura Oaxaqueña, 2021–2022), brought together paintings created specifically for that architectural space.
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Instagram: @luishampshire - instagram.com/luishampshire
HOW TO ARRANGE A STUDIO VISIT OR A CURATED TOUR:
Studio visits or a curated tour with the artists featured in this catalogue are by appointment only. Please do not contact the artists directly, instead, reach out to our organizational team, who will be happy to help coordinate a visit that fits your schedule during your time in Oaxaca.
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Please list the artists you are most interested in, preferred dates, and number of people.
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Gabriela Casas ​- Email: coyuxe@gmail.com
Phone: +52 1 951 548 42 65
Reference: Oaxaca Artist Studio Visit