This film tells the story of Arte Mestiza—a mural in the FAC’s collection—and the artist who created it, Emanuel Martinez. Los Muros De Nuestra Comunidad explores Martinez’s inspiration, the process of painting the mural, its relationship to the Chicano Movement, and the recent conservation completed in fall 2023. This film includes interviews with Emanuel Martinez; Lucha Martínez de Luna, Director, Chicana/o/x Murals of Colorado Project; Savanah Pennell, FAC Curatorial Research Assistant; and Nancy Ríos, Colorado College Hulbert-Mellon Research Fellow, 2020. Los Muros De Nuestra Comunidad was created by Gray Warrior (Ahó Media).
Arte Mestiza is an acrylic outdoor mural painted on 2,000 square feet of concrete on a wall in the FAC’s parking lot, created by Emmanuel Martinez in 1986. Arte Mesitza looks to artists of the Southwest, Mexico, and Spain along with art found within the Fine Arts Center’s permanent collection, to highlight the visual language associated with mestizaje, or being of mixed Indigenous and Spanish ancestry.
This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. Find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities.