Porfirio Gutiérrez

Three artists of Mexican heritage whose work was included in MCASB’s recent exhibition, Sangre de Nopal are presented together here through indigenous craft practices formerly denigrated as primitive that now offer visions of innovative futures.

Zapotec artist, Porfirio Gutiérrez is a custodian of the ancient knowledge of cochineal production, maintaining the ancestral practice of processing and dyeing with cochineal insects for his woven artworks. Through his family knowledge and workshop based in Teotitlan del Valle in Oaxaca, using a range of plant-based materials found in the locality, he creates an expansive spectrum of colours. Gutiérrez maintains his ancestors’ spiritual belief in nature as a living being, sacred and divine, reinterpreting his inherited weaving language by subverting and re-imagining its symbols and forms to create a contemporary indigenous identity.

Part of Learning from the Land at The Whitaker.