Trichocereus (1997) highlights Miguel Ángel Ríos's masterful ability to fuse American botanical heritage with a striking postmodern painterly presence. This compelling cactus oil painting captures the mystical blooming of a columnar cactus set against an absolute, velvety black void that strips away any spatial distractions. The canvas thrives on a radical juxtaposition between the architectural green ribbed stalk and the luminous explosion of the blossom, where crisp white petals and electric orange sepals radiate geometric dynamism. Ríos elevates native flora into a totem of sacred contemplation, converting a natural element into a poetic exploration of life and resilience.

In the late nineties, and after traveling to regions as diverse as the Amazon basin and the Chihuahua desert, Ríos began to develop a body of work through which he addressed the meaning of hallucinogenic plants in the indigenous cultures of the American continent; a new cartography of the Americas but this time through other means of representation that account for the artist's subjective voyage into the territories of alterity. This art work it’s part of the collection of Bernardino Arocha and Mrs.

Ríos chose to use specific mediums for the “documentation” of each experience. A series of drawings made under the influence of the Peyote cactus convey in the manner of automatic writing the delirium of the artist under the effects of the drug.

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Cactus Oil Painting - Trichocereus, 1997. By Miguel Ángel Ríos

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Miguel Angel Ríos studied at the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires before moving to New York in the 1970s to escape the military dictatorship in Argentina. He subsequently relocated to Mexico and now divides his time between the USA and Mexico.

In his work, Ríos pairs a rigorous conceptual approach with a meticulously constructed and often handmade aesthetic. Since the 1970s, he has made work about the concept of the "Latin American," using this idea as both an artistic strategy and a political problem. In the 1990s, he began creating a series of maps, which he carefully folded and pleated by hand. Marking the 500th anniversary of the "discovery" of the Americas, the maps indicate long histories of power and colonial experience, and they reference traditional Indigenous arts in the Americas, including the Andean quipu.

Since the early 2000s, Ríos has also delved into the medium of video to create symbolic narratives about human experience, violence, and mortality. For example, his videos of spinning tops--trompos--use the childhood game of tops as a backdrop for a meditation on the transience of life and the mechanics of power. In his 2012 Untitled video from The Ghost of Modernity, Ríos references high Modernism--with direct nods to John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, and Donald Judd--in the midst of the Mexican desert. "Is this ghostly geometric figure a lens through which the world can be reinterpreted?" the artist asks. "Or is it the paradigmatic principle of modernist thought that organizes the world around it? Are we inside or outside the cube? "

Ríos’s works have been shown in a number of important solo exhibitions, including Landlocked, Arizona State University Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, USA (2015); Miguel Angel Ríos: Walkabout, Des Moines Art Center, Iowa, USA and Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil (MACG), Mexico City, Mexico (with exhibition catalogue) (2012); Miguel Angel Ríos, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin, New Zealand (2010); Manhattan Códice, John Weber Gallery, New York City, New York, USA and Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil (MACG), Mexico City, Mexico (1999); Miguel Angel Ríos: Neither Colour, nor height, MUCEM, Marseille, France (2017);Miguel Angel Ríos, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA), Argentina (2009); On The Edge, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD), California, USA (2009); Miguel Angel Ríos: On the Edge, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Texas, USA (2019); A Morir, Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona, USA (2007); and No Way Out, Röda Sten Konsthall, Gothenburg, Sweden (2019).

Cactus Oil Painting - Trichocereus, 1997. By Miguel Ángel Ríos

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