Sergio Bustamante

Sergio Bustamante was born in 1949 in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico, and is largely self-taught, drawing on the rich tradition of Mexican folk art and the surrealist currents that have long run through Mexican fine art. He began exhibiting in the 1970s and built an international following through galleries in the United States, Europe, and Japan. His studio and showroom in Tlaquepaque, Jalisco — one of Mexico's premier craft and art centers — became a destination for collectors. Bustamante works primarily in paper-mâché, ceramic, and bronze, and his output is broad: large-scale bronze sculptures of figures striding through doorways or arches, ceramic birds and animals in brilliant color, paper-mâché suns and moons with human faces, and elaborate mixed-media compositions. His figures are immediately recognizable — elongated, stylized, and charged with a playful surrealism that owes something to Magritte and Dali while remaining distinctly Mexican in its folk-art sensibility. His work is widely popular in Texas and the American Southwest, appearing regularly in estate sales and private collections throughout the region.