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Alejandro Garcia Contreras

Alejandro García Contreras is a multidisciplinary visual artist known for his syncretic practice that fuses sculpture, ceramics, painting, photography, video, and installation. Across his work, Alejandro cultivates an experimental dialogue between materials and cultural narratives, bridging references from contemporary popular culture with Mexican folklore, mythology, religion, and occult traditions. His art elicits symbolic energies drawn from both personal memory and collective imagination, often navigating themes of desire, mortality, and transformation.

Alejandro received his Bachelor of Visual Arts from the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. He has a sustained international exhibition history, including solo presentations at Swivel Gallery (New York, Frágil: El Misterio de los Seres Sensibles, 2023), Travesía Cuatro (Guadalajara, La noche más obscura, 2023), Saenger Galería (Mexico City, Vibrations of an Imperfect Cosmic Web, 2023), and Pioneer Works (Brooklyn, ¿Quién no ha intentado convertir una piedra en un recuerdo?, 2024), among others. He has participated in prominent art fairs such as NADA New York and Miami and ArtOsaka and his work appeared in group exhibitions at institutions including Friedman Benda (New York). Alejandro’s practice has been recognized with awards including the Artfest World Trade Center Acquisition (2006) and multiple FONCA / Jóvenes Creadores scholarships.

In addition to exhibition projects, Alejandro has completed artistic residencies internationally, including through Art Explora x Cité internationale des arts in Paris. Early in his career he co-founded the Laboratorio de Artes de Chiapas and contributed to Neter, a platform supporting emerging Mexican artists abroad. His work continues to resonate across multiple cultural contexts, reflecting a sustained engagement with ritual, mythic imagery, and the symbolic possibilities of materiality.

Image: Alejandro Garcia Contreras, The Watchtower and the Herald of Presence (La Atalaya y el Heraldo de la Presencia), 2013, exhibition views from PS Project Space, Amsterdam.

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EXHIBITION > The New Gods

May 7, 2015 - May 31, 2015

A cross-continental collaboration between Canadian artist Josée Pedneault (Montreal) and Mexican artist Alejandro Garcia Contreras (Mexico City), The New Gods is a Featured Exhibition of the 2015 Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival. Featuring an extraordinary series of large-scale photographs, this project examines fantastical rites of spring that have emerged spontaneously within Carrillo Puerto, an isolated village in the mountains of Chiapas in southern Mexico.

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