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| Nicolás V. de Jesús | |
|---|---|
| Name | Nicolás V. de Jesús |
| Birth date | 1944 |
| Birth place | San Juan Ostuncalco, Quetzaltenango Department, Guatemala |
| Nationality | Guatemalan |
| Field | Painting, printmaking, murals |
| Training | Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas, San Carlos University |
| Movement | Indigenous art, Social realism, Muralism |
Nicolás V. de Jesús is a Guatemalan painter, printmaker, and muralist whose work documents indigenous life, ritual, and social struggle in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. Born in San Juan Ostuncalco in the Quetzaltenango Department in 1944, he migrated to Mexico City in the 1970s, where he became part of broader artistic networks associated with Mexican muralism, Printmaking, and indigenous cultural movements. His career connects communities in Guatemala, Mexico, and the United States through exhibitions, collaborations, and teaching, intersecting with figures and institutions in Latin American art.
Nicolás V. de Jesús was born in the indigenous town of San Juan Ostuncalco in the Quetzaltenango Department and grew up speaking K'iche' before learning Spanish, reflecting the multilingual environment of Highland Guatemala. He studied at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas of San Carlos University in Guatemala City, where he encountered faculty and peers influenced by Mexican muralism traditions such as those of Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco. Political upheaval in Guatemala and cultural repression shaped his decision to relocate to Mexico City, where he joined print workshops and connected with organizations like the Taller de Gráfica Popular and artists associated with the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura.
His early career in Mexico City involved collaborations with collectives and print studios that linked him to the legacy of Taller de Gráfica Popular and contemporary printmakers such as Felipe Ehrenberg and José Luis Cuevas. He produced linocuts, woodcuts, and lithographs, showing work in venues associated with the Palacio de Bellas Artes, Museo de Arte Moderno, and alternative spaces tied to activist networks around indigenous rights and solidarity movements with Central America in the 1980s. During the 1990s he began to undertake mural commissions and public projects in collaboration with community groups in Quetzaltenango and Guatemala City, aligning with municipal and international cultural programs sponsored by institutions such as the British Council, the UNESCO, and arts councils in Mexico and the United States.
His oeuvre emphasizes scenes of ritual life, market activity, traditional dress, and mourning tied to events such as displacement and political violence, drawing aesthetic and thematic parallels with artists like Rufino Tamayo and Alfredo Ramos Martínez. He frequently depicts women in Mayan textiles, weaving visual references to Mayan codices, ceremony, and agricultural cycles associated with communities in the Western Highlands and the Highlands of Chiapas. Stylistically, he combines figuration and narrative sequencing with graphic print techniques echoing the practices of José Guadalupe Posada and José Chávez Morado, while also integrating iconography related to Catholicism and pre-Columbian motifs found in Mesoamerican archaeology. His palette and line work register an economy of form that amplifies communal memory, social critique, and spiritual continuity.
Major works include series of linocuts and murals depicting market scenes of Quetzaltenango and ritual processions from towns such as San Juan Ostuncalco, which have been shown at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey, the Museo de Arte Moderno (Guatemala), and galleries in Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco. He participated in group exhibitions alongside artists from the Latin American art circuit, including retrospectives dedicated to print culture from the Taller de Gráfica Popular and biennials focused on indigenous artistic production. Public murals and community projects commissioned in collaboration with municipal agencies and non-governmental organizations have brought his imagery into municipal plazas, community centers, and university campuses in Guatemala and Mexico. Catalogues and exhibition panels have placed him in dialogue with thinkers and curators from institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Latin American Art, and university programs at University of California, Berkeley and Harvard University.
He has taught printmaking and mural techniques in community workshops, university classrooms, and cultural centers, influencing generations of artists in Quetzaltenango and Mexico City. His pedagogical practice echoed community art education models associated with Diego Rivera and Rina Lazo, emphasizing collective production and intergenerational transmission of indigenous iconography. Students and collaborators have gone on to exhibit in institutions including the Instituto Cultural de México en Guatemala, regional art fairs, and bilingual education programs linked to indigenous rights advocacy groups and cultural heritage projects supported by UNESCO and regional arts foundations.
He has received recognition from municipal cultural councils, Latin American arts organizations, and international cultural institutes for his contributions to printmaking and muralism, including awards and fellowships tied to residencies in Mexico City, grants from arts councils in Guatemala and Mexico, and invitations to international print biennials alongside artists from Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Cuba. His work is held in collections and archives associated with regional museums and academic institutions committed to Latin American and indigenous art history.
Category:Guatemalan painters Category:Guatemalan printmakers Category:Mexican muralists