The Juchitán House of Culture hosts an exhibition by Gabriel Macotela

The artist Gabriel Macotela (Guadalajara, 1954) learned about the House of Culture of Juchitán, Oaxaca, thanks to the fact that Francisco Toledo, who founded it in 1972, took there at one point a group of young artists among whom he was. Years later, Macotela donated a torculo to them that is currently in the attached graphics workshop, also founded by Toledo.

The reinvention of the world It is called the exhibition of Macotela’s work that opens today at the Juchitán House of Culture, recently restored after suffering serious damage in the 2017 earthquake. It includes 30 pieces on paper, the majority graphic made over 10 years in different techniques, but also pastels on paper. The engravings were printed in workshops such as Tiempo Extra Editores, by Emilo Payán; Limited Artegraphies, by Alejandro Ehrenberg; Loose Leaf; Casa Ballena, with the printer Lenin Fajardo, and Gráfica Zanate, in Oaxaca.

Now focused on painting and drawing, Macotela has just gone through a serious health problem that, fortunately, did not cut short his production: “I started drawing a lot in the hospital, because I did nothing but lie down.” He showed some of these drawings last year at the Acapulco 62 gallery. He never stopped creating, because “we painters are like that, a little obsessive in this sense. Those who write, the same. Also musicians. It happens that the painter is more chaotic, in the good sense of the word. A little more anarchist, because the serious musician is more structured.

“I wanted to be a musician before being a painter, because my mother played the piano and my sister the violin. However, I couldn’t because of the logic of music theory. I studied trumpet for two years at the National Conservatory of Music. There I met Arturo Márquez, to whom I have said that I am a frustrated musician, to which he responds: ‘if you had been a musician, you would be a frustrated painter’. I love music; it has always been very important to me. Painting and music are the closest arts: “They identify more in concepts and languages.”

–Because painting gives you more freedom?

– Yes, and because my teacher, Gilberto Aceves Navarro –at the National School of Plastic Arts– forced us to draw like beasts. Day and night without stopping. He made us understand that drawing is the structural part of painting. There are painters who hardly draw, they are more purists, let’s say. Although for the most part the soul is the drawing, a little. This is the case with all my work, especially in graphics.

Macotela found his “language” thanks to these plastic exercises: “Very strange things occurred to him. Afterwards, I understood them. For example, the teacher Aceves Navarro made us draw with both hands with our eyes closed. When we saw the result, we said: ‘Oral’. Then he asked us to bring an object, a fruit, whatever. I brought something to measure fonts from my father’s printing press. When we were in the room he told us: ‘Close your eyes and with your left hand touch the object that each person brought, and with your right hand translate what you feel. He made us do very dyslogical things, not normal logic. Then, he made us see painters that we didn’t know who started a lot from that idea of Gilberto and did similar exercises.’

–Did your health problem make you reflect on your life and your artistic practice?

–The worst of all, I think I will remain the same. I thought it was going to be someone else, so to speak. Of course, it has made me think a lot, meditate and modify some things in my way of life, something that is very difficult for me. I have no words to define these moments, nor what I have been through, but especially emotionally. I try to improve what I do, study more. Additionally, I have gotten together with friends to do activism, because I still believe in that. I am very worried about Mexico. The violence we are experiencing is incredible. I never imagined that this would be Mexico. Then, there is a very strong attitude of abandonment towards culture. A lack of interest and support in many things, when I thought it was going to be the opposite.

–Has your work changed?

–I don’t know, I don’t realize. I’m going to say something very stupid. If it were figurative, maybe it would take topics related to this (the health problem). However, since I am abstract, well, I don’t know how much I have changed. Currently, I return to ideas from when I was a student related, for example, to color. Suddenly, I became very monochromatic.

Macotela is preparing an exhibition for 2026 at the Hispánica gallery, of sculpture, painting, drawing and installation, one with the theme of the wars in Palestine and Russia, and another with the faces of the disappeared.