[exhibit] The Euphoric Dance of the Unconquered Mind // SF

Elizabeth Jiménez Montelongo first encountered traditional Mexika dance in San José, California. In 2007, she began to practice with a local calpulli and dance at ceremonies.

She completed an intensive university course in classical Nahuatl, which included an introduction to understanding the glyph art found in Indigenous Mesoamerican hand-painted books. In 2010, Elizabeth Jiménez Montelongo began painting Mexika dancers in a series of oil paintings on canvas, simultaneously working on a series of mixed-media paintings on wood, inspired by Mesoamerican philosophy and glyphs.

The Euphoric Dance of the Unconquered Mind features textured oil paintings of Mexika dancers that exude movement, energy, and power to celebrate the continued tradition of Indigenous dance ceremony. To create the work, Elizabeth Jiménez Montelongo crops and combines her own photographs of dancers in movement and renders the composition on canvas, applying paint with a palette knife for a thick impasto. This work is based on Mexika dancers from the San Francisco Bay Area, in acknowledgment of the living culture-keepers who preserve and practice Indigenous traditions in the 21st century, across social and political borders. The vibrantly colored paintings celebrate mental liberation and honor our Indigenous ancestors.