Nahual The Contemporary Artist as Shaman
February 17 - April 18, 2025
Featuring Artists from Colectivo Quinta Miranda Ricardo Ayón Flores “Matzuwa”, Sergio Bonzón, Yupi Ca, Enrique de Santiago, José Duarte, Guillermo Grebe, Rosalba Hernández, Bernhard Hetzenauer,
Iñaki Muñoz, Jacki Praxedes, Jimmy Valdez Osaku, Miguel A Zúñiga
Co-curated by Jimmy Valdez Osaku
Organized by a collective of Spanish-speaking artists from Central America, South America, Mexico and Europe, this exhibition celebrates the current role of the artist as community healer, and as an innovative image maker creating at the intersection of history, mysticism and a reclaimed vision of traditional values and beliefs. These works of art represent a deep enchantment with a hidden, holistic world into which we may enter as through a secret door or open window, into a reborn time and place. Like shamans from indigenous native cultures, the new-found role of artist-as-shaman traveling to spirit realms to bridge the etheric and the tangible, thus bringing healing to the physical body, and comfort to agile minds troubled by the erasure of past civilizations and rich, vital cultures lost. By balancing a belief in magic and a state of consciousness that embrace of all things supernatural, these artists and their created works shown here embody a mythos that resists separating faith practice from lived experience, or the history from which we have emerged to the current moment in which we reside.
The artist's journey is one comparable to the shaman – as creative thinker, arbiter of traditional culture, and architect bridging a far-removed past to a contemporary world which distrusts, disavows and abrogates the mythic to realms of mere fantasy and fiction. The Nahuals, as depicted here, are mystical, shapeshifting spirit animals that gift inspiration and creativity to those who generate art that not only heals but also bestows a robust understanding and a glorious introspection to all who view them. This exhibition is a homage to the process of the creation, to the very mythology of the Nahual – transfiguration of the invisible into the physical, from the blank canvas to otherworldly and astonishing representations which may, when mused over, live and breathe in dimensions that challenge the very way in which we see, perceive, and ultimately come to believe anew.
Gallery Hours
Monday - Friday
12 - 4 p.m.
Upcoming Events
Artists' Roundtable Discussion and Dinner
Tuesday, April 15 | A-300 | Lobby 6 p.m.
Join international artists featured in the current BHCC exhibition Nahaul: The Contemporary Artist as Shaman for an evening of creativity, conversation and connection.
Sponsored by the Mary L. Fifield Art Gallery
Community Reception
Wednesday, April 16 | 6-8 p.m. | Mary L. Fifield Art Gallery
Come enjoy the artwork, meet the artists, and connect with other members of BHCC's Creative Community.
Refreshments and Live Music
Free and open to the public