Though Latinx people have long been part of the fabric of this country, Latinx artists in the United States have only recently begun to be acknowledged by the mainstream art world. Because of the lack of support for their works, many Latinx artists established their own venues—from New York to Los Angeles, San Francisco to Chicago, Phoenix to San Antonio—to showcase the varied artistic visions of this diverse community. In recent years institutional support has become more forthcoming, thanks in large part to a generation of Latinx scholars, curators, and writers who have raised the profiles of their artistic elders and contemporaries. And while market support has been much slower in coming, that too is beginning to change.
Below we examine 75 of the most important and exciting Latinx artists, who have had a profound impact on art history and their communities by creating work in which community members can see themselves represented. This list is by no means comprehensive but serves as entry point to learn about a diverse group of artists who deserve further study.
Jay Lynn Gomez
Much is said about Los Angeles’s verdant gardens. But that attention is seldom directed toward the people who do the tough labor of trimming palm trees and cleaning pools. In her work, painter Jay Lynn Gomez—born to undocumented Mexican immigrant parents in San Bernardino, California—excavates the oft-unheralded stories of people whose labor sustains the image of the city as a well-manicured paradise. Earlier this year, however, for an exhibition at P·P·O·W gallery in New York, Gomez turned her focus inward. In a series of sumptuous mixed-media and painted works, Gomez documented her ongoing transition while paying tribute to the transgender women of color who have come before her. —P.M.
Guadalupe Maravilla
Guadalupe Maravilla is an artist, choreographer, and healer whose multidisciplinary art practice integrates drawing, sculpture, sound, and ritual to explore themes of migration, trauma, and healing. Born in El Salvador in 1976, Maravilla was just eight years old when he became part of the first wave of unaccompanied, undocumented children to arrive at the U.S. border in the 1980s, fleeing the Salvadoran civil war that lasted 12 years, from 1980 to 1992.
His art is deeply rooted in his history as a migrant and strongly influenced by immigrant communities’ experiences and culture, especially within the Latinx diaspora. His intricate sculptures, immersive installations, and community-based healing performances are intensely autobiographical, examining how the systemic abuse of immigrants physically manifests in the body, as seen through his own experience with cancer. Maravilla continues to challenge and expand the boundaries of art, using his platform to address social and cultural issues while offering pathways to healing and resilience. —M.E.R.
Pepón Osorio
Sculptor and installation artist Pepón Osorio was born in 1955 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In 1975 he relocated to the South Bronx in New York City, where he attended Lehman College, earning a degree in sociology. His work challenges the stereotypes and misconceptions that influence our perceptions of social institutions and human relationships. Osorio’s collaborative works emerge from his deep engagement with communities—whether residents of urban ethnic neighborhoods, social service workers, or children in foster care. His art tackles serious issues such as prison life, domestic violence, AIDS, and poverty.
Osorio is renowned for his intricate and dynamic recreations of indoor spaces, spanning from personal home settings like bedrooms and living rooms to communal areas such as barbershops and courtrooms. He creates these installations using found objects as well as items he customizes or makes himself. By exploring challenging themes like race and gender, death and survival, and alienation and belonging, Osorio encourages his audiences to rethink their assumptions and biases. —M.E.R.