Ecos Del Alma

Curated by Antonio Martinez, SIU School of Art and Design professor and local artist, Ecos del Alma brings together traditional Mexican folk art and contemporary artistic practices to explore memory, ancestry, cultural identity, and the many ways we understand the past and present. Through family histories, shared cultural legacies, reimagined ancient mythologies, and stories shaped by contemporary realities, the exhibition reflects the experiences and imaginations of Chicano and broader Latino and Hispanic communities.

At the heart of the exhibition, Nicolás de Jesús’s large painting, Día de Muerto (Self-Portrait), establishes a reverent yet celebratory tone. Depicting the living honoring the dead through the customary creation of an ofrenda—an altar of remembrance—the work invites reflection on the enduring bonds between generations and the presence of ancestors in our lives.

(Painting by Victor de Jesus)

(detail view of Dia de Los Muertos painting by Victor de Jesus)

Across the gallery, a contemporary, two-tiered ofrenda titled Se me Adelantó extends this tradition of remembrance into the present. In the context of death and mourning, the phrase translates as “They crossed over before us.” The altar honors the lives and memories of family members of the exhibiting artists, while also commemorating those whose lives have been disrupted or lost in connection with immigration detention and policing. Here, remembrance becomes both a personal act of love and a collective gesture of witness.

(Installation of Ofrenda by Antonio Martinez, lithographs printed on Amante paper by Victor de Jesus)

(Installation view of Ofrenda )

Facing the altar, Mexico City artist Raúl Sisniega’s Fragmented Deity presents a fragmented portrait of a seemingly cosmic being. The figure’s face combines the features of 20 ICE detainees representing diverse ethnicities and nationalities, overlaid with 468 facial landmark points associated with AI facial-detection and surveillance systems. Gazing toward the ofrenda, the painting creates a visual dialogue between this contemporary, composite deity and the lives remembered across the gallery. Together, the works consider the human consequences of surveillance, displacement, and loss, asking whose lives are seen, remembered, and honored.

(Left- Fragmented Divinity by Raul Sisniega)

Along the gallery’s surrounding walls, additional works draw upon traditional Mexican iconography to explore ancestry, identity, and the afterlife. Alex Guerrero’s multicolored woodcut print honors the protective presence of his grandfather while celebrating his father’s love of muscle cars, weaving family memory into a vivid personal narrative. Marus Jimenez’s painting addresses a familiar question that many Mexican Americans encounter on government and employment forms: the demand to define one’s identity through prescribed categories. Beneath it, Pablo Ramirez’s Pocho, a book of poetry and visual art, offers a bittersweet meditation on what it means to be brown on the outside and white on the inside, navigating the tensions of cultural belonging and identity.

(Custom bolo by Sidney Torrez)

(Contemporary milagras manos by Antonio Martinez) Together, these works reveal how memory, ancestry, and cultural identity are continually carried forward, questioned, and reimagined. Ecos del Alma invites us to consider the stories that shape us, the lives we choose to remember, and the echoes of those who came before us that continue to resonate in the present.

(left- Illustration by Tekpatl, Right- Multi-color Woodblock print by Alex Guerrero)