Sandra Monterroso
Bio
Sandra Monterroso (Guatemala, 1974) is a contemporary artist of Maya Q’eqchi’ descent. Her artistic practice focuses on the restoration and reactivation of her ancestral cultural heritage from an active position as a Maya woman and artist within the contemporary context.
Working from an explicitly decolonial perspective, Monterroso addresses the study of historical and ongoing dispossessions that affect Indigenous peoples: territorial loss, economic, political, and cultural violence. Her works—encompassing sculpture, painting, video art, performance, installation, and textiles—function as acts of resistance, memory, and healing.
A distinctive feature of her production is the use of natural pigments and dyes derived from plants and organisms with a long history in Maya and Mesoamerican territories: indigo (Indigofera suffruticosa), cochineal (Dactylopius coccus), turmeric, fustic or mora wood, chlorophyll, avocado pit, achiote, wild flowers, and local barks, among many others. These materials are not merely technical media but carriers of ancestral knowledge, cosmogony, and a living relationship with the land.
In her stylistic language, she integrates Maya spirituality, traditional Q’eqchi’ textile patterns and techniques from other Maya peoples, as well as ephemeral organic materials that underscore the fragility and cyclical nature of life. Her pieces operate on multiple levels of interpretation: they invite the repair of lingering colonial wounds, the dismantling of Eurocentric art narratives, and the preservation and transmission of Indigenous knowledge that colonialism sought to erase.
Through her work, Sandra Monterroso not only makes visible the persistence of Maya culture in the present but also proposes a model of contemporary Indigenous artistic creation that is profoundly political, ecological, and feminist—and, above all, healing.
Statement
Artist of Maya Q’eqchi’ descent, multidisciplinary. She began her career as a postwar artist, discovering in 2008 the relationship between video-performance and textiles while creating the costume for one of her most emblematic works, “Meditando el error” (Meditating on the Error). Since then, she has produced works featuring dyed fabrics and/or sculptural pieces made with woven textiles, dyed threads, recycled and dyed carpet materials, and fabrics dyed in her own studio.
She holds a PhD in Philosophy of Art from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (2020). She earned a Master’s degree in Design Processes from UPAEP, Puebla University, Mexico (2007), and a Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design from Rafael Landívar University, Guatemala (2001). The focus of her research and artistic production lies in decolonial thought, ecofeminisms, and the defense of Indigenous peoples.
She has presented 20 solo exhibitions and participated in more than 50 group exhibitions. She has represented her country in over 12 international and national biennials, including the 56th Venice Biennale, the 12th Havana Biennial (2015), and the Frestas Triennial in Sorocaba, Brazil (2017).
Her work is included in major collections such as:
Reina Sofía Collection, Madrid
Yes Contemporary Collection, Miami
Fundación Paiz for Art and Culture Collection, Guatemala
University of Essex Collection, Colchester, England
Ortiz Gurdián Foundation, Managua, Nicaragua
Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, San José, Costa Rica
Mario Cader-Frech Collection and Ernesto Poma Collection, El Salvador
Private collections in Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, the UK, and the USA
She has been nominated for and won various international awards, as well as national prizes.
