Draft:Maruch Mendez

Maruch Mendez
Born	1957 K'atixtik, Chamula, Chiapas, Mexico
Occupation(s)	multimedia artist, ritual healer, traditional Tzotzil leader

Maruch Méndez Peres (Mexico, November 30, 1957) is a traditional Tzotzil shaman, multimedia artist, sculptor, painter, potter, and ritual singer from the hamlet of K’atixtik in the Chamula municipality in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. In addition to international acclaim as an artist, having exhibited and performed in venues including New York, Mexico City, and Paris, Méndez is a prominent figure in her own community as a traditional sage and healer. Maruch Méndez currently holds the ceremonial position of Me’jchabe Sacramento, which includes singing and dancing in representation of the midwife of Jesus in all the festivities of Chamula, for a five-year term from 2023 to 2028.

Early Life

In the book Ch’ul Mut, Diane Rus writes:

Maruch grew up in a family that was poor, even relative to those of her neighbors... Her father, like most indigenous men of the highlands, worked seasonally on coffee plantations, and then as a share-cropper on land owned by Spanish-speaking ranchers. […] He died young, in his mid-forties, leaving 3 young married sons and a married daughter, and two unmarried children including the youngest--Maruch. Maruch’s mother worked hard and held the family together. She foraged for edible plants and despite being a woman, planted the family’s small cornfield. From her earliest years, Maruch learned how to help out. […] In those years, girls were not expected, nor allowed by their parents, to attend primary school. Thus, Maruch never learned to speak Spanish, nor to read and write. Her keen observational skills and lively curiosity, however, shine through the details she mentions when describing the habits of the birds and other animals that she encountered when foraging as a child; her outdoor “school” taught her how to read the environment.

— Diane Rus, Ch'ul Mut (2023)

Artistic career

Art critic Ingrid Suckaer, a researcher in modern and contemporary art, notes:

“ I am very interested in Maruch Méndez, not only the aspect of her sculptural works, but also as a woman with admirable strength; she refused to marry, since the Chamulas beat their wives and since she didn't want that, she went to live alone in the forest. Méndez is a shaman, and she has a very particular pictorial ability. ” — Ingrid Suckaer in La Jornada

From a young age, Méndez began her artistic practice with natural terracotta, creating utilitarian objects and traditional artifacts.

“ In the clay, I found a way to be heard without the need to speak Spanish, through clay I can communicate my song, my gestures, my laughter, my voice, and the history of my community. ” — Maruch Méndez

Upon discovering different forms of intercultural visual communication, Méndez embraced new means of creative expression, such as performance, installation, and acrylic painting. Méndez’s installations are a composition of elements including stones, leaves, and other natural elements.

Taller Leñateros

Maruch Méndez’s career began at Taller Leñateros in 1990, working with the poet Ámbar Past and the women’s collective, writing, illustrating, printing and binding artist books.

Her songs, prayers, stories, and myths have been published in Tzotzil, Spanish, French, English, German and Mandarin. She is the co-author, with poet Ámbar Past, of Bolom Chon. Also, together with Past, and Japanese artist Tamana Araki, Méndez created a children’s book, Als die Sonne ein ind war, inspired by a Tsotsil Mayan myth about the Sun when he was a child, published in Switzerland and China by Boabab Books. Méndez, in coordination with anthropologist Diane Rus, wrote and illustrated a 336 page compendium on birds entitled Ch’ul Mut.. A painting by Maruch appears on the cover of the book.

Painting by Maruch Méndez featured on the cover of Chul Mut

Maruch Méndez collaborated for more than three decades as one of the most important artists and spiritual-and-aesthetic guides of Taller Leñateros, where she worked as a papermaker, sculptor, author and bookbinder. During those years, Méndez was part of an artistic duo with poet Ámbar Past, with whom she combined Tzotzil Mayan poetry and song in a postmodern performance format.

In 2012, Taller Leñateros, represented by Maruch and Ámbar, was named as one of the 100 most influential women leaders of Mexico by El Universal (Mexico City) newspaper. Conjuros y Ebriedades, and Sueños y conjuros desde el vientre de mi madre, are just two of the books published by Taller Leñateros that Maruch participated in with Ámbar Past that have garnered critical acclaim and institutional recognition. Taller Leñateros also received the National Prize for Civic Merit in 2011, and the National Prize for Literature and the Arts awarded by the President of Mexico in 2023, in the category "Art and Popular Traditions".

Galería MUY

Maruch joined the group of contemporary Mayan and Zoque artists at Galería MUY in 2015. Having the studio space in which to work, she returned to terracotta and commenced making larger clay sculptures. She has also experimented with the medium of installation, placing her sculptures (those less than a meter high) in environments of stone, sandstone, and other natural elements. Under the guidance of Tzeltal master artist Antún Kojtom, Méndez launched into painting with acrylics, which became her medium of choice.

Armadillo sculpture by Maruch Méndez

Mujer neblina / Fog Woman, sculpture by Maruch Méndez

Published Books

• Ch’ul Mut, Sacred Bird Messengers of the Chamula Maya
• Als die Sonneein Kind war
• Bolom Chon
• Sueño conjuros desde el vientre de mi madre
• Incantations: Songs, Spells and Images by Maya Women
• Conjuros y ebriedades, cantos de mujeres mayas

Exhibits

• Los huecos del agua, Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico, 2023
• Los huecos del agua, National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago, Illinois, USA, 2023
• Ja'chka'itik k'usi smelol li ch'ul mutetike / Así entendemos a los pájaros mensajeros sagrados, individual exhibit, Galería Muy, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, 2023.
• Skuxlejal antsetik / Vida de las mujeres, group exhibition, Galería MUY, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, 2022.
• Spatel Nopvenetik/Moldeando ideas, group exhibition, Galería MUY, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, 2022.
• Impactos en nuestro arte, individual exhibition, Galería MUY, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, 2021.
• Outsider Art Fair, XVIII virtual edition, New York City, New York, United States, 2021.
• Mayan and Zoque Interpretations of the (In)visible Pandemic, virtual exhibit, MUY Gallery, 2020.
• Spoxil Ch’ulelal (Medicine of the Soul), multidisciplinary exhibit, XXI Century National Medical Center gallery-museum, Mexico City, 2019.
• Jna’tik Jnatik (We Miss Our Home), group exhibit, Corpus Christi Church, Mexico City, Mexico City, 2017.
• Science and Spirituality in Maya Art, multidisciplinary exhibit, Galería MUY, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, 2017.
• Mujeres de barro, exhibit with Feliciana Ramírez, Galería MUY, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, 2015.
• Los Huecos del Agua, Arte actual de pueblos originarios, collective exhibit at Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City, 2019.
• Maternar, collective exhibit, Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, November 2021-January 2022..
• Material Art Fair, Galería MUY booth, 2024

Perfomance

Outside of Mexico, Maruch has shared her performance acts at Applied Brilliance in Ohai, California in 2017, and the Festival D’automne in Paris in 2011.