La conquista | 20”h x 30”w | Oil on canvas | 2005

Inspired by one of Diego Rivera’s murals, this piece depicts a battle scene where a Jaguar Warrior is defending himself from a Spanish soldier during the 1521 conquest of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City). In the background the big city pyramids are being burned and destroyed by the Spaniards in the presence of Tonatiuh (Sun), trying to erase the existence of the Empire and its splendor. Becoming nowadays part of the ancestors to modern Mexican people, and as time passes the buried Gods keep surfacing from under the colonial temples reclaiming its territory but most importantly the dignity, culture and beliefs of its peoples.