The Tamayo Museum , together with the Secretaría de las Culturas y Artes de Oaxaca and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo y de las Culturas Oaxaqueñas, presents the twentieth edition of the Rufino Tamayo Painting Biennial, which since its creation has contributed to highlighting and promoting the development of contemporary painting in Mexico.

This exhibition, composed of 40 works selected through a national open call, offers a representative panorama of current pictorial production in its aesthetic, conceptual, and technical diversity.

Founded in 1982 by maestro Rufino Tamayo, the Biennial was created to foster pictorial experimentation and diversification, expanding its limits and rethinking its possibilities. Today, more than four decades later, it continues to serve as a space for creative confrontation, critical dialogue, and national projection—where tradition and innovation intertwine to reflect Mexico’s social, political, and cultural transformations.

For this edition, the jury was composed of five curators and artists: Tobias Ostrander, Paulina Ascencio, Víctor Palacios, Berta Kolteniuk, and Lucía Vidales, in an intergenerational exercise that celebrates formal and conceptual exploration.

The selected works capture tensions, resonances, and reflections that range from the introspective to the structural, addressing memory, local identities, territorial narratives, social and symbolic violence, ecological crises, and emotional relationships with nature.

By decision of the jury, the three acquisition prizes were awarded to: José Gonzalo García Muñoz (Puebla) for El desfile del salvaje hacia un futuro; Javier Peláez (Mexico City) for La Ralla II (duermevela); and Othiana Roffiel Sánchez (Mexico City) for Mirage. These works will now become part of the collection of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo y de las Culturas Oaxaqueñas.

Five honorable mentions were also awarded: Laura Meza Orozco for Untitled (Jardín de las delicias I – Transpintura); Octavio Moctezuma for Interocepción 13; Francisco Muñoz for El sol cuando es de noche; Israel Uribe Merino for La repartición del pastel (all four from Mexico City); and Daniela Ramírez González (Jalisco) for Fuegos Artificiales.

The exhibition showcases a remarkable technical diversity, ranging from traditional oil painting to unconventional supports such as ceramics and talavera, integrating embroidery, graphite, UV printing, heat application, and materials like jute, avocado pit, henequen, or wood. These approaches expand the pictorial field and confirm that painting in Mexico is experiencing a moment of creative and conceptual effervescence, capable of responding to the challenges of its time.

Among the participating artists is Circe Irasema, represented by Proyectos Monclova, who presents works from her series Nuevos Climas, where pictorial materiality and sensory perception engage in dialogue with the transformations of the environment.

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