We Live in Painting: The Nature of Color in Mesoamerican Art—A Virtual Symposium

Join us for a two-day virtual symposium in conjunction with We Live in Painting: The Nature of Color in Mesoamerican Art. Day 1 will highlight the perspectives of contemporary artists, exploring how they engage with the rich history and symbolism of color in Mesoamerica. Each artist will delve into materiality, technique, and worldview–through the lens of their practice– offering unique insights into how color continues to shape and inform practices today.

Porfirio Gutierrez is a California-based Zapotec textile artist and natural dyer, born and raised in the richly historic Zapotec textile community of Teotitlán del Valle in Oaxaca, Mexico. He grew up immersed in color and surrounded by the wildness of Oaxaca's mountains and by the knowledge of plants for healing and for color. His life’s work has been revitalizing and preserving traditional Zapotec natural dye techniques with a focus on reinterpreting traditional textiles and materials to reflect his distinct creative vision.

Carlos Barrera Reyes is a visual artist with a diverse approach in his work. His artistic practice spans a wide range of themes, from ethnography to social, collaborative, and participatory art. His versatility is reflected in the diversity of formats and materials he has explored throughout his career. Carlos is characterized by his deep social commitment, which propels his work in the art of social interaction and education. Since 2008, he has been the director of a social art project in collaboration with thirty indigenous communities in Chiapas and Oaxaca, focusing on promoting natural dye techniques. Since 2017, he has been leading the project for the revitalization and socialization of the textile collection at the Na Bolom Museum in Chiapas. Currently, he serves as a professor and a doctoral student in the Faculty of Arts and Design at UNAM.

Tatiana Falcón is a mestiza Mexican researcher whose work focuses on the study of material and techniques in art. Experimentation is fundamental to her work, which thoughtfully considers how the development of motor skills and empirical experience are fundamental to artistic production and value. The workshop that she held in Xalitla aimed to revitalize the techniques and materials used in Indigenous manuscripts. Their revitalization—as well as the self-reflection that it provoked in the artists—has been one of the most rewarding outcomes of Tatiana’s inquiry: why make history, and history for whom?

Jesús Lozano Paredes is a Nahua painter from Ahuelican who has lived in Xalitla, Guerrero, since the age of seven. He learned to paint by watching his parents and joined a workshop at the age of nineteen to further develop his skills. In his work, Jesús paints Indigenous worldview and cosmogony. He credits Tatiana Falcón’s workshop, which focused on the extraction of natural pigments, as the experience that most defined his art practice by helping him connect to his ancestors, the tlaquiloqueh, and in that way feel established as a painter.

Diana Magaloni is a renowned art historian, author, curator, and conservator. She is currently Deputy Director, Program Director of the Art of the Ancient Americas (2014–2025), and the Conservation Center Director at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2019–2025). Dr. Magaloni holds a Ph.D. in Art History from Yale University, an M.A. in Art History from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), and a B.A. in Conservation from the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH). She was Director of the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City (2009–2013), and a researcher and professor at UNAM (1991–2014). Her research has focused on developing methodologies to understand the originality of the artistic and aesthetic processes of ancient America's Indigenous cultures. (Moderator)

For more information about Day 2 of the Symposium, please click here.