Amantecas [Research project, 2024—ongoing]

Pedro, a parrot from the state of Tampico (northeastern Mexico), grew up in my family.
Pedro is my home. Pedro is the starting point of my research. Before the “colonization”
of the Americas, there were feather artisans known as amantecas. In Mesoamerican
cultures, the use of birds was a reference to Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent (a god
in Aztec mythology). This deity was the protector of the art of featherwork. Feathers
were used for ritual, funerary, festive, and warrior purposes; their crafting required
great skill. As soon as they arrived, the Spanish asked the “natives” to create miniature
religious images using this technique. These objects, known as feather mosaics,
captivated Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries. Feather mosaics made from
bird feathers served both to evangelize and colonize Indigenous communities, as well
as to introduce the Western concept of the image to the Americas. Unfortunately, the
technique —like the mosaics themselves— has almost entirely disappeared.


Chapter I: Pedro

My affection for Pedro and the problematic nature of the image carried by bird feather
mosaics led me to question certain globalized images. Images we all hold in our
collective imagination, and which, in my generation, we remember from childhood. It is
thanks to mangas like Sailor Moon, Saint Seiya, Captain Tsubasa, and Ranma ½ that
I can engage in dialogue, conversation, and shared interests with people from other
cultures, which makes me feel that (geo-political) borders do not exist. Through these
new feather mosaics that I create, I want to revive a technique devalued by history
and that once held great significance in my culture. Thanks to contemporary art, these
feather images can open up dialogue, foster debate, and, above all, highlight the
violence endured by exotic birds since the extractivism that began in the 16th century.

Chapter II: The Theft of Images

This second chapter reclaims the word MOSAIC as a metaphor for the colonial
process —that is, the appropriation of a technique as a method of recognition and
naming based on Western references. This chapter seeks to explore the potential of
the feather as a material within this context. My interest in the history of Andalusian
mosaics in Spain, in the works of Gaudí, and in the curved, stylized forms of natural
elements in Art Nouveau and Art Deco, led me to explore the sculptural creation of
objects using bird feathers. My aim is to create a contemporary reinterpretation of the
technique and its history, and to question its naming conventions.

Aquí en el horizonte
[31.01—12.04.2026]
MMAC Morelos, Mexico
[Group show]
Gabriela Salazar, Marilyn Boro Bor, Carolina Fusilier, Luis Enrique Zela-Koort, Calderón & Piñeros, Valentina Díaz, Daniel Monroy Cuevas, Distruktur, Asma, Diego Ventura Puac-Coyoy, Vir Andrés Hera, Omar Castillo Alfaro.

¶Regina De Con Cossío, assisted by María Olivera

En esta muestra señalamos lo más elemental del paisaje: la línea.
Esa que brota de nuestra experiencia visual y se proyecta ante nosotros como una ficción compartida: el horizonte. El título puede condensarse en una contraposición. Esta línea se sitúa más allá del territorio físico; no es lugar, tampoco destino. Su existencia es, en realidad, una ilusión sostenida por la mirada, una construcción perceptiva vital para orientarnos y volver habitable la idea de abismo.
Mejor dicho, me imagino el vértigo de transitar el paisaje sin referencia.

Más que una imagen unívoca, es un tema que atraviesa todas las obras. Lo ponen de manifiesto denuncias políticas, revisiones históricas o reflexiones sobre el tiempo y las tradiciones. Así, la sala se configura como un campo de referencias en coexistencia, donde cada pieza propone una orientación única, y conduce al espectador por distintas capas de significado. El horizonte no es ni fondo, ni recurso compositivo, es el umbral hacia otras formas de conocer. Funciona como una zona especulativa: un sitio donde la memoria deriva, el conocimiento ancestral emerge, y futuros alternativos toman forma. El cuerpo, la mirada y la distancia se relacionan en el paisaje como una negociación
continua entre lo que vemos y desde dónde lo hacemos. Y en ese entramado, el horizonte organiza nuestra experiencia. En su gesto, se despliega simultáneamente como frontera y promesa: un límite visible y una proyección imaginativa. En otras palabras: en este espacio colisionan la realidad y la fantasía. La museografía extiende este planteamiento en el espacio mediante líneas horizontales que subrayan una base y figuras radiales que apuntan a lo que excede nuestra vista inmediata. 
El valor, la ley, el texto, lo post-humano, la naturaleza, el amor, el desarraigo, la trascendencia, el reconocimiento, lo onírico y el poder entran en diálogo con el cambio climático, el racismo, el capitalismo, el biocosmismo y otros temas que incomodan nuestro presente.

En las obras de Gabriela Salazar, Marilyn Boror Bor, Calderón y Piñeros, Diego Ventura Puac-Coyoy, Carolina Fusilier, Asma, Luis Enrique Zela-Koort, Vir Andres Hera, Daniel Monroy Cuevas, Valentina Díaz, Distruktur y Omar Castillo Alfaro, esta conversación toma forma en nuestro campo estético de visión a través de fotografía, instalación, video, sonido, escultura y dibujo.

En resumen, la muestra nos pone en contacto con un mundo abierto, amplio, atravesado por intereses diversos que evocan una abundancia de sentidos, un mundo que, aunque delimitado por los muros museísticos, simula un entorno en libertad. Si el horizonte está aquí es gracias a la posibilidad ficticia del arte, que por una vez, trae ante nosotros lo que siempre se aleja. Aquí, el horizonte, es objeto de contemplación y cercanía.

Resident artist at Gasworks
[07.01—23.03.2026]
London, UK

Omar Castillo Alfaro creates immersive installations with earth, clay, beeswax, candles and bird feathers that reactivate pre-Hispanic mythologies. Interested in reviving a Mesoamerican futurism, he often uses ancestral techniques such as stone-carving and embroidery which have been passed down by his family in San Lorenzo Sayula, Mexico. Using this history, he examines and excavates the colonial processes that have continuously shaken and fragmented his native region in the state of Hidalgo in Mexico, a Nahuatl-Otomí region.

At Gasworks, Omar will further develop his Amantecas project using a feather art technique which is inherited from pre-Hispanic and colonial Mexico. He will visit institutions that house pre-Hispanic objects and historical texts with the aim to produce new sculptures and a new linguistic sound piece.

Omar Castillo Alfaro's residency is part of Magnetic, a joint Franco-UK initiative under the umbrella of Fluxus Art Projects that brings together ten institutions to create a network of artist residencies in French regions and UK nations.

Bisou Magique

[21.02.2025 — 05.04.2025]
sissi club, Marseille
Festival PAC

Group show:  Rosario Aninat, Sofía Bonilla Otoya, Omar Castillo Alfaro, 
Samir Laghouati Rashwan, Inès di Folco Jemni, Sofía Salazar Rosales, 
Joshua Merchan Rodríguez, Hyewon Mia Lee

¶Persona Curada

Accueilli par sissi club, dans le cadre du Festival PAC, Bisou Magique atteint son dernier chapitre avec une exposition collective qui rassemble les recherches formelles et conceptuelles développées au cours de ce projet. Cette présentation finale met en lumière les interrelations entre des pratiques artistiques distinctes, formant un espace partagé dans lequel les méthodologies, les matériaux et les récits se croisent.

Cette itération du projet s’est concentrée sur les approches basées sur le processus et l’expérimentation matérielle, soulignant la façon dont chaque artiste navigue dans la forme comme moyen de construire le sens. Qu’il s’agisse de sculpture, d’installation, de peinture ou de vidéo, les œuvres exposées témoignent d’un engagement à réfléchir sur les matériaux, tant pour leurs propriétés physiques que pour leur capacité à contenir la mémoire, l’histoire et la fiction. Les pratiques se tiennent en conversation, reliées par une attention aiguë à la matérialité et aux tensions qui surgissent entre ce qui est révélé et ce qui reste implicite. Plutôt que de privilégier une seule logique narrative ou esthétique, l’exposition présente une constellation d’approches qui restent distinctes mais résonnent à travers des préoccupations communes – surface, structure, composition et transformation.

Un bisou magique – un baiser qui guérit – est évoqué ici non seulement comme un geste de soin, mais aussi comme un cadre conceptuel à travers lequel l’exposition envisage la manière dont les œuvres d’art peuvent servir de médiateur entre les registres personnel et collectif. Dans ce contexte, la guérison devient une proposition structurelle, plutôt qu’émotionnelle, qui implique la reconfiguration des matériaux, des contextes et des relations.

En positionnant des œuvres individuelles dans un dialogue formel, Bisou Magique ouvre un espace de réflexion critique sur la manière dont les stratégies artistiques se chevauchent, se font écho ou divergent. L’exposition résiste à la cohésion thématique en faveur d’une structure ouverte et polyphonique, qui reflète l’éthique collaborative du projet lui-même.

ARCO Madrid

sissi club galery
Premio talento joven [2025] 

¶ Cristina Anglada & Anissatowati

The proposal resonates with the oil paintings on wood by Camille Bernard and the Amantecas by Omar Castillo Alfaro, inspired by the weaving of wicker for the former and the featherwork art of Native Mexicans for the latter. Their dialogue also reflects a view of the mineral properties of landscapes, the sculpting of stone by nature or humankind: Bernard’s marine rock meets Alfaro’s bird beak sculptures in alabaster.

Habiter le temps

[Collective exhibition]
Casa de Velázquez, Institut Français, Madrid, Spain

Rémi Algis, Alfonso Borragán, Omar Castillo Alfaro, Paloma De La Cruz, Jean Gfeller, Juan Francisco González, Yann Gross, Marine Lanier, Lucia Malerba, Sandra Mar, María Rojas, Lucile Soussan, Adrien Vescovi, Maxence Voiseux

¶Claude Bussac ^{[read here]}

Open Studio

Casa de Velázquez, Institut Français
Madrid, Spain

Amantecas, Chapter II : The image’s theft

Ce deuxième chapitre s’approprie le mot MOSAÏQUE comme métaphore du processus colonial, c’est-à-dire l’appropriation de la technique comme méthode de reconnaissance et de nomenclature basée sur des références occidentales. Ce chapitre vise à explorer le potentiel de la plume en tant que matériau dans ce contexte. Mon intérêt pour l’histoire des mosaïques andalouses en Espagne, pour les oeuvres de Gaudí et pour les formes courbes et stylisées des éléments naturels de l’Art Nouveau et de l’Art Déco m’a conduit à m’intéresser à la création sculpturale d’objets à partir de plumes d’oiseaux, afin de créer une relecture contemporaine de la technique et de son histoire, et de questionner sa nomenclature.

Our souls at night

[24.02—05.04.2025]
Umberto Di Marino, Naples, IT

Omar Castillo Alfaro, Guendalina Cerruti, Gwen, Miriam Marafioti, 
Margherita Mezzetti, Gabriella Siciliano, Yulia Zinshtein

The project is a global microhistory that seeks to capture the disillusionment of a generation—those born between the 1990s and 2000s—who grew up in a world without walls or borders, yet were the first to experience the weight of a failed linear vision of progress. They witnessed a technological evolution that was meant to bridge racial, sexual, political, and social divides, only to find themselves trapped in a global village where time has collapsed into an eternal present, overshadowed by an oppressive fear of the future. Instead of the promised optimism and sustainability, they are left navigating a fragmented landscape, where both human and natural bodies exist in a state of perpetual transition. Synthetic, digital, human, natural— matter itself transcends the rigid categories of modernity, becoming a vessel for generational nostalgia, a patchwork of dissonant yet contemporary narratives that refuse to coalesce into a single truth.

What remains is a deep-seated melancholy, a longing for a past that feels increasingly unreachable, and a mourning not only for what has been lost but for what could have been—an ache for unrealized possibilities and broken dreams. This generation seems caught in an endless liminal state, hesitating at the threshold of an irreversible action, remaining Forever Overhead. Through different artistic approaches, the exhibition explores various dimensions of loneliness.

Yulia Zinshtein’s paintings depict caricatured, sketch-like figures at café tables, embodying a struggle with human connection, while Margherita Mezzetti’s collages of pale, smooth, almost surreal bodies merge everyday imagery with elements of fictional narratives, evoking a sense of unease. Miriam Marafioti paints a cartographic reality that blends real and scientific landscapes, distorting them with acidic colors and invasive natural elements. A darker and more unsettling vision emerges in the works of Gwen, who immerses the viewer in nightmarish imagery of monsters and witches, while Omar Castillo Alfaro revisits ancestral practices from his homeland, confronting the enduring impact of identity traumas in post-colonial narratives. 

Gabriella Siciliano’s works capture the difficulty of leaving behind the liminal space between adolescence and adulthood, depicting stuffed animals and carousel creatures at rest, a theme echoed in Guendalina Cerruti’s use of childhood toys—sparkling beads intertwined with a raw DIY aesthetic. In these sometimes diverging stories, there seems to be no room for a future that is no longer something to look forward to with hope or build with effort, but rather a weight that this generation prefers to leave behind—to those who came before them.

TOTOTL

[14.09—12.01.2025]
Centre Pompidou—Metz, France.

¶Ateliers Jeune Public

Before America was “colonized”, there were schools of featherwork called amantecas. For Mesoamerican cultures, the use of birds was a reference to Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent (god of Aztec mythology). This god was the protector of the art of the feather. Exotic birds were bred for the use of their colors. Feathers were used for ritual, funerary, festive and warlike purposes; it was an art of extreme skill. The first religious miniatures to circulate in Latin America were produced using this technique, which is therefore intimately linked to the birth of the image on this continent.

Omar Castillo Alfaro is a Mexican artist, selected for the Salon de Montrouge 2023 and currently resident at Casa Velazquez. For the Centre Pompidou-Metz’s Jeune Public workshop, he has chosen to blend traditional Mexican craftsmanship with images of today’s world in a colorful universe. In a mysterious and bewitching setting, using a multitude of feathers of every color, children are invited to create miniature images that will give rise to a new bestiary of figures. In the process, they’re introduced to the art of featherwork, reminiscent of the feather-making schools that existed in Mexico until the 17th century, and discover sacred Mesoamerican art, the respectful practice of which is in itself a way of raising awareness of the need to protect endangered species.

[Ateliers Jeune Public, Centre Pompidou Metz, 2025]

[05.04 — 01.06.2024]
Sultana Summer Set
Arles, FR

Mathis Altmann, Omar Castillo Alfaro, Léa de Cacqueray, Jean Claracq, Adriano Costa, Jesse Darling, Julian Farade, Justin Fitzpatrick, Angelica Mesiti, Pati Hill, Mel O’Callaghan, Megan Plunkett, Torbjørn Rødland, Philipp Timischl, Trevor Yeung

¶Noam Alon ^{[read here]}