FÉNIX OMETEOTL (solar)

Centro Médico Mazunte Oaxaca, México

concrete, bronze + silver leaf, acrylic paint 2020

'Fénix Ometeotl' navigates the cosmological content of the region’s identity as Nahuatl and Zapotec territory. This project was made possible by the vision of Doctor Josué Gutiérrez Contreras, the head physician of Mazunte, whose ancestry is Nahuatl.

‘Ometeotl’ is Nahuatl and a deity concurrently existing in the Zapotec pantheon. Ome means “two”, and teotl translates to “energy” — signifying a union of the two forces that are believed to have fueled the creation of our universe, occurring as an astronomical collision of molten stone.

Representing the primordial being who symbolizes celestial events within the cosmology of the Indigenous peoples of Mazunte, the work is intended to divest Oaxacan culture from the impacts of the global north, creating an active pathway of legacy and awareness that lives in public space as art.

Half of auction sales will be donated to Centro Médico Mazunte.