Bio
Mateo Gutiérrez is a multidisciplinary artist who utilizes a self-taught hand-embroidery technique alongside painting, drawing, and video to interrogate the underlying ethos of violence and xenophobia endemic to American life. Moving to the United States at age sixteen, Gutiérrez draws from his background in philosophy to examine the traumatic effects of socioeconomic and racial hierarchies on the contemporary landscape. By translating ephemeral, discarded online news headlines into labor-intensive textiles and endless video loops, his practice deliberately subverts the instantaneous attention span of modern media, forcing an encounter with marginalized histories in excruciating detail.
Gutiérrez holds a BA from UC Berkeley and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. Over a distinguished career, his work has been selected by prominent curators, including early recognition by Jerry Saltz and recent curation by Abraham Thomas of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and was featured in the 2025 Texas Biennial. He has exhibited at the Austin Museum of Art, Mexic-Arte Museum, and the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art. A former Studio Art Lecturer at Texas State University, he has lectured internationally at institutions including Fordham University and York University. Gutiérrez’s practice has been profiled in Hyperallergic, New American Paintings, and Glasstire. He is currently a resident at the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn, NY, with upcoming 2026 residencies at the NARS Foundation and Arts 14C.
Artist Statement
My practice investigates the structural violence embedded within imperial power, focusing on the United States as its most extreme historical iteration. I see my work as an inquiry into the wreckage of the American empire, a specific case study in the universal failure of imperial ambition. At its core is not a political argument, but a human one: the profound emotional trauma rippling through individual lives within the physical United States, along its southern border, throughout its territories, and across the globe in its near-universal reach.
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Crucial to this work is an analysis of the modern spectacle of suffering: the continuous consumption of global pain via mobile devices. I argue that rather than inciting action, the relentless proliferation of these images induces overwhelm and disempowerment, functioning as an insidious mechanism of contemporary control. Yet, within that shared grief lies a quiet necessity, a provocation to open eyes and hearts, moving past the illusions of empire toward a global solidarity and interconnected awareness that I believe we have yet to realize. Ultimately, I am seeking an awakening to both our collective grief and our collective dignity, qualities that modern empire attempts to strip away and commodify into mere content for consumption.
I primarily use embroidery thread because with each year that I get older and observe humanity it becomes clearer and clearer to me that we are relearning our violent and antagonistic ways. We come into this world with an inherent understanding of empathy for all living beings and a need to share. We are born with a sense of justice that applies to all, and carefully we train ourselves out of this state - perhaps not entirely, and I don't mean to paint a totally dim picture of humanity. However, the violence and hatred that plague humanity derive from old stories and old ​wounds, like thread​s, that we carefully stitch together, generation after generation, handing this pain, this enmity, this fear down through the ages, over and over again. In addition, textiles are historically tied to the domestic sphere, warmth, and human utility. By using embroidery to depict the cold, devastating psychological wreckage of empire, I want to create a profound cognitive dissonance for the viewer. They approach expecting comfort, only to confront trauma. Finally, the immense, visible labor of hand-embroidery stands in direct opposition to the fast, clinical, automated violence of modern empire (like drone strikes or the endless images of death and mayhem on our phones 24/7). The time invested in the stitch honors the enduring weight of the emotional harm.
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More about my work and process can be found in the section Ask Me Anything.
CV
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Born: Geneva, Switzerland
Lives: NYC & Austin
EDUCATION
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M.F.A. Studio Painting, University of Texas, Austin
B.A. Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley
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EXHIBITIONS​
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2027​​
Bronx Art Space, group exhibition, (opening Spring 2027 TBA), Bronx, NYC
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2026​​
Arts 14C, group exhibition, Fabric of a Nation", (opening June 2026), Jersey City, NJ
The Norwalk Art Space, "American Voices 250", group exhibition (opening June 2026), Norwalk, CT
Textile Art Center, group exhibition (opening September 2026), Brooklyn, NY
Art League Houston, group exhibition, Houston, TX
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2025​
Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (Craft House Houston), Craft Texas 2025, curated by Abraham Thomas, the Daniel Brodsky Curator for Modern Architecture, Design and Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, group exhibition, Houston, TX
Box 13 ArtSpace, solo exhibition, Houston, TX​​
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2024
Texas Biennial 2024, group exhibition, jurors Erika Mei Chua Holum, Ashley DeHoyos Sauder and Coka Treviño, Sawyer Yards, Houston, TX
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2023
La Mecha Contemporary, group exhibition, "A Fine Line", El Paso, Texas
Brownsville Museum of Fine Art, solo exhibition, Brownsville, Texas
Mexic-Arte Museum, group exhibition, Alimento para el Alma / Food for the Soul, Austin, Texas
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2022
Bronx Art Space, group exhibition, 5 Artists, "Where Do We All Come From?", Bronx, NYC
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2021
The Border Gallery, group exhibition, Border Walls IV, Brooklyn, NY
BronxArtSpace, Residency Exhibition, Governors Island, NY
DorDor Gallery, group exhibition, Brooklyn, NY
Shrine Gallery, group exhibition, NY, NY
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2020
MOCA Long Island, Night Visions Gallery MOCA L.I.ghts, group exhibition, Patchogue, LI, NY
The Urban Collective & Nasty Women, group exhibition, Rituals of Resistance, New Haven, CT
Field Projects Gallery, group exhibition, Hoarders House, NY, NY
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2007
Buckwild Gallery, solo exhibition, Los Angeles, CA
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2005
Mexic-Arte Museum, group exhibition, Young Latino Artists, Austin, Texas
Lawndale Art Center, solo exhibition,The Project Room, Houston, Texas
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2002
Jones Contemporary, group exhibition, New American Talent, curated by Jerry Saltz, Austin, TX
Austin Museum of Art, group exhibition, 22 to Watch, New Art in Austin, Austin, TX
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RESIDENCIES
2026 Arts 14C (Upcoming), Fabric of a Nation, a Special Projects Residency, Jersey City, NJ
2026 The NARS Foundation (Upcoming), Season IV 2026 International Artist Residency Program, Artist in Residence, Brooklyn, NY
2025-2026 The Textile Arts Center (Current), Artist in Residence, Brooklyn, NY
2021 Bronx Art Space, Governors Island Residency, NYC
AWARDS & HONORS
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2021 Top Ten Studio Picks by NY & LA based curator & writer Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy, Gowanus Open Studios
1999 Minority Fellowship Award, University of Texas Austin
1997 Merit Award, University of Texas Austin
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PRESS
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2026
Textile Arts Center Blog, Featured Artist in Residence, March 2026
2025
Glasstire, Craft Texas 2025, August issue
MelissaRichardsonBanks.com, Craft Texas 2025, August issue
Glasstire, Mateo Gutiérrez: It's the End of the World As We Know It, February issue
Art With Altitude, "The Tactile Rebellion", featured artist, Winter issue
2024
Glasstire, The Last Sky: Thermals and Thresholds, December issue
Glasstire, Big Medium Announces 2024 Texas Biennial Artists, group exhibition write up, September issue
2023
Glasstire, La Mecha Contemporary, group exhibition write up, August issue
Brownsville Valley Central 23 Channel 4 and Danielle Banda "Valley Por La Vida", TV interview
Glasstire, Brownsville Museum of Fine Art solo exhibition write up, May issue
2022
The Magic Spark Podcast, featured guest, "The Wound of Worthiness & Belonging: Artist Interview"
New American Painting, featured artist, Issue #152 “Northeast”
2021
Hyperallergic, "Your Guide to Explore the Unfamiliar at Gowanus Open Studios"
Mott Haven Herald, "Five Bronx Artists Chosen for Governors Island Residency"
2020
Hyperallergic, “A View From the Easel During Times of Quarantine”
Hartford Courant, “Rituals of Resistance”
Arts Council Greater New Haven, “In Year Four, Nasty Women Returns To Its Roots”
2000
Austin American Statesman, "22 to Watch"
Austin Chronicle, "Behind the Storage Unit Door"
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PUBLIC SPEAKING​
February 2026: Artist Talk and Q&A, Fordham University at Lincoln Center, New York, NY
January 2026: Artist Talk and Q&A, Art League Houston, Houston, TX
April 2025: Artist Talk, Night of Ideas, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX
March 2025: Artist Talk and Q&A, Center for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean, York University, Toronto, CAN
March 2025: Artist Talk and Q&A, University of Guelph, Toronto, Canada
February 2024: TED Talk at Texas State University
May 2023: Solo-exhibition Artist Talk and Q&A at Brownsville Museum of Fine Art​
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TEACHING ​
​​2023-2025: Texas State University Department of Art, San Marcos, Texas, Studio Art Lecturer in Art Foundations
2024: Volunteer Youth Art Instructor, Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center, Austin, Texas
1996-1999: University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, Transmedia Teaching Assistant
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