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Oaxaca’s Sacred Keeper: María SabinaArtwork by Jacqueline Lopez
In celebration with San Rafael Dia de los Muertos
October 9–November 13, 2026
Exhibition Dates
October 9, 5–8pm
Reception & 2nd Friday Art Walk
November 13, 5–8pm
Reception & 2nd Friday Art Walk
Created in honor of Día de los Muertos, Oaxaca’s Sacred Keeper: María Sabina draws from the rich spiritual traditions of Oaxaca and the enduring practice of honoring those who came before us.
At the heart of the installation is María Sabina, an Oaxacan healer and ceremonial keeper whose relationship with sacred mushrooms became part of a larger cultural legacy of communion, healing, and altered states of consciousness. Her presence becomes a threshold between the visible and invisible—between ancestry, nature, memory, and mystery.
The collage is intentionally layered and evocative rather than literal. Botanical forms, flowers, mushrooms, candles, smoke, ancestral symbols, celestial imagery, and fragments of Oaxacan visual traditions converge and dissolve into one another. Papel picado patterns, textile-inspired motifs, amate-like textures, and vibrant folk-art forms create a visual language rooted in place and tradition.
The work invites viewers to pause at the threshold—and consider what remains when the living remember the sacred dead.
Artist Statement
In Oaxaca’s Sacred Keeper: María Sabina, I explore the sacred relationship between ancestry, nature, ritual, and transformation. Born on the border of Paraguay and Brazil, my practice is informed by Hispanic-Portuguese and Guaraní Indigenous influences, ancestral memory, and a lifelong fascination with the unseen.
Through layered collage, I create a space where María Sabina becomes both historical figure and spiritual threshold—an invitation to consider the wisdom carried through generations and the mysteries held within the natural world. The work draws upon my own experience of altar-making, dreams, ritual, and reverence for those who came before me, including my grandfather, a practitioner of folk medicine.
Created for Día de los Muertos, this piece is less a portrait than an offering: a visual meditation on remembrance, sacred knowledge, and the enduring conversation between the living, the ancestors, and the unseen.
https://www.artworksdowntown.org/artist-wall
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Art Works Downtown, 1337 4th St, San Rafael, CA 94901-2809, United States
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