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.

ARCO Madrid
sissi club galery

Premio talento joven
[2025] 

stand with Camille Bernard

¶ Cristina Anglada & Anissatowati
P


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.






ah naab was produced thanks to La Ferme du Buisson with the support of Patrick Cavecchi and the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon in the person of Leyre León Álvarez. In collaboration with Francis Desjeunes and Alexandre Rabot.

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







Exhibition views of Bisou Magique, sissi club, Marseille, 2025. © photo sissi club

BY 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.


Amantecas, chapter 1: Pedro

67th Salon de Montrouge
[05.10—29.10.2023] 
Montrouge, France
Amantecas, chapter 1: Pedro, series, 2023
Liana—Espatula Rosa. Natural bird feathers, metal, bee wax. 71 x 63 x 22 cm, 100 x 103 x 34 cm, 140 x 120 x 63 cm
Liana—Oropéndola de Moctezuma. Natural bird feathers, metal, bee wax. 115 x 75 x 40
Beak—fall 2. Natural bird feathers, alabaster, metal, bee wax , 26 x 16 x 120 cm
View of the exhibition 67th Salon de Montrouge, 05—29 october 2023, Montrouge, France © photo Elias Galindo López
Omar Castillo Alfaro, Amantecas, chapter 1: Pedro, Installation.Natural bird feathers, soapstone, alabaster, metal, cardboard paper and wood. Variable size. View of the exhibition 67th Salon de Montrouge, © photo Elias Galindo López

The artist also takes an interest in amantecas, the elite Aztec artists who mastered featherwork— the art of feathers, which, at the time, were as precious as they were sacred, and used to adorn sovereigns’ headdresses, warriors’ shields and certain religious objects. Monks in Mexico still use featherwork to make Christian icons. And, in the hands of Omar Castillo Alfaro, featherwork is used to recreate the manga characters he saw on television in the 1990s, and to question the status of images in the age of Internet circulation.

Pedro, a parrot from the state of Tampico (Northeast Mexico), grew up with my family. Pedro is my home. Pedro is the starting point of my research. Before the ‘colonization’ of America, there were schools of feather workers. 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 feathering. Feathers had ritual, funerary, festive and warlike uses; it was an art of extreme skill. 

Once the Spaniards arrived, they asked the ‘natives’ to create miniature religious images with this technique. These objects that captivated Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries have now practically disappeared.


Our souls at night

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

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



Photo by Danilo Donzelli Fotografia


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]
Omar Castillo Alfaro, Tototl, Installation: natural bird feathers, soapstone, alabaster, metal, cotton paper and wood. Sound composition by ISMA, variable dimensions. Exhibition view, at Centre Pompidou–Metz, France. Photos © Jacqueline Trichard. Courtesy of the artist. 























Cruella DE-VIL


[05.04 — 01.06.2024]
Sultana Summer Set
Arles, FR

Group show: 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]






Omar Castillo Alfaro, PICO — MUR (AMANTECAS CHAPTER 1: PEDRO, SERIES), 2023 , Alabaster and steel, 40 x 20 x 20 cm, Courtesy of Omar Castillo Alfaro, Paris.

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.



Installation view at Casa de Velazquez, Académie de France à Madrid, March 
the 2nd, 2025. Photos © Elise Poitevin, courtesy of the artist 
and sissi club galery, Marseille



La vérité, dont la mer est l’histoire


[05.04 — 01.06.2024]
Sultana Summer Set
Arles, FR

Group show: 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]






Omar Castillo Alfaro, PICO — MUR (AMANTECAS CHAPTER 1: PEDRO, SERIES), 2023 , Alabaster and steel, 40 x 20 x 20 cm, Courtesy of Omar Castillo Alfaro, Paris.