Marela Zacarias

Marela Zacarías’s sculptural murals painted with bright, geometric shapes are nothing like those created by Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros that she grew up seeing as a child in Mexico. Zacarías instead creates contemporary murals that nod to Mexican artistic traditions in other ways, using patterns inspired by the weaving traditions of Indigenous Mesoamerican women in three-dimensional works that resemble fluttering fabric. She holds an MFA from Hunter College, and has had solo exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, and Galería Alterna. Zacarias makes wall-mounted works such as Crescent Top & Crescent Bottom (2018) by building wooden frames that she outfits with window screens, then fills with plaster that she sands down to her desired shape.