Amador Montes

The calling card of his intense practice are vivid paint handling and a commitment to an unerring vision, one that interweaves text, figuration, and abstraction, all united by deep emotion. Above all, Montes’ paintings possess an underlying sense of a journey through myth, memory, and the collective unconscious that seeks clues and deciphers answers to a mysterious language, asking the viewer to unravel riddles while they make connections to their own lives. 

The hallmarks of Montes as an artist are evolution, transformation, experimentation, and the continuous quest for meaning. The artist’s aesthetics and expressive strength reference his personal life, travels, family connections especially his relationship with late mother Carmen, and language. 

In Mexico, his artwork has been widely exhibited in galleries, museums, universities, alternative spaces, and other high- profile public settings including Casa Lamm Gallery, Bosque de Chapultepec Botanical Garden, Baroque International Museum, Santo Domingo Cultural Center, Alfredo Ginocchio Gallery, Oaxaca Philately Museum, La Estampa National Museum, Drexel Gallery, Risco Hose Museum, Oscar Roman Gallery, Urban Gallery, Los Muñecos House University Museum, BUAP University Cultural Complex, Guadalajara Regional Museum, Oaxaca Painters’ Museum, Queretaro Art Museum, Archbishop Art Museum, and Fernando García Ponce (MACAY) Museum. 

Exhibition venues out of the country that have presented Montes’ image-rich work encompass the United Nations Headquarters, and Amsterdam Whitney Gallery, both in New York City; Vatican City; the Mexican Embassy in Spain; universities throughout the United Kingdom including those in Exeter, Birmingham, Manchester, and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and The Future Gallery in Wales; Excellency Ateneo in Seville, Spain; the International Museum of Art and Science in McAllen Texas; PICI Gallery and Hangaram Art Museum, both in Seoul; the Contemporaneous Art 3F International Fair in Monte Carlo, Monaco; SoHo Gallery and the Sweden International Art Fair, both in Vasteras, Sweden; the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington D.C.; and Lake of the Típulas permanent public artwork at Chapultepec Botanical Garden in Mexico City. 

High-profile honors range from being named by Forbes magazine’s Mexico edition to the list of 100 Most Creative Mexicans in the World to being a panelist at the Latino Impact Summit at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. 

Montes’ illustrious career has been highlighted in a number of books, monographs, and exhibition catalogues including Amador Montes: Under the Skin, Amador Montes, Part of Me Stays Here Today, Magicians and Magic, Antagonistic, Workshop Review, The Other Wall, The Other Wall Project, Nautilus, Borrowed Jewels, Eating Love, Personal Chronicles, Aromas, and Amador Montes, an Oaxacan Artist.