Mexico City-based artist Raúl Sisniega’s visit to Tlaolli

I met Raúl Sisniega at a meet and greet event on Thursday evening hosted by Tlaolli, a Mexican restaurant on the near northeast side known throughout Indy for its plentiful vegan and vegetarian options.  

Sisniega, who lives in Mexico City, is a painter and muralist who crosses the border regularly to visit the U.S. In his art he also crosses borders between pre-Columbian motifs from indigenous Mexico and more eclectic influences, such as Nintendo gaming icons and Kabbalah mysticism. I had a chance to scroll his Instagram page before setting off for Tlaolli; his work struck me as playful, colorful, and surreal.

“I don't consider myself a gallery artist,” he told me, when we sat down to talk in Tlaolli’s outdoor patio area. “I have not worked myself to get into a gallery circuit. I paint like five or six canvases throughout the year at most and then I sell prints.  The public that I reach through my social media is massive, but they cannot pay more than $100. I prefer selling like 10 or 15 prints of one painting than selling the original because no one's paying for my originals now. So I don't paint that much on canvas.”

He works on murals in Mexico in the fall; he paints and makes prints in the winter, and he often visits the US in the summer.

Sisniega’s largest mural project to date was called “Particle,” which he painted on the side of a Guadalajara skyscraper, with its wave motifs and sea creature subjects that he completed in 2017.

Left to Right: “Particle” mural on building in Guadalajara, Mexico, streetside mural in Mexico, group photo at Tlaolli, and mural at Indy Walls.

“The idea of the mural is that water is made out of particles, molecules … oxygen and hydrogen. And basically we're all made of those particles. So everything in life is made of particles and so I tried to paint like water symbols next with human and animal characters created by those tiny molecules and particles.”

While in Indianapolis, Sisniega painted a mural at the Indy Walls artist community center.  He will be coming back to Indianapolis next summer to paint a shipping container gallery run by Arte Mexicano en Indiana, for which founder Eduardo Luna serves as executive director. Partnering with Luna on the local level were Nopal Cultural, the Arts Council of Indianapolis, artist/writer Jennifer Delgadillo, and Tlaolli.

Luna is impressed not just by the conceptual content of Sisniega’s art, but also by where his artwork ends up. He notes that he doesn’t just paint his murals in Mexico City but “in all parts of Mexico, in the most unusual places.” He is looking forward to working with Sisniega next summer and helping people learn from his artform.

As someone who tries to get across the Mexican border as often as I can to talk to the artists who live there, I’m grateful for people in Indianapolis like Luna— who brings Mexican artists here.