Opening: Alberto Cruz: Wild Company
In his most recent project, Oaxacan artist Alberto Cruz depicts the connections between childhood and nature through a collection of twenty-one linocuts featuring diverse ecosystems as settings for new visual stories about children and animals.
The series is organized in seven thematic groupings, each corresponding to a distinct ecosystem and composed of three images: safari, lake, beach, North Pole, forest, mountain, and desert. Across these images we see children embarking on adventures alongside birds, elephants, hippopotamuses, polar bears, dogs, reptiles, and other quadrupeds.
The creativity of children’s minds has always been a central theme in Cruz’s work. They are the protagonists in this series, depicted as free, strong, dignified, and meditative human beings, with animals as allies, travel guides, and companions. Cruz typically makes art for people of all ages, but children are the intended primary audience for this project—a sensibility rooted in his four years teaching art to kindergarten and elementary students in Oaxaca, an experience he credits with reshaping how he sees the world.
