About the Artist
Born in Mexico City, Enrique Chagoya (b. 1953) is currently an Assistant Professor of Art at Stanford University. After studying at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Chagoya moved to the US in 1977, and received his BFA at the San Franciscåo Art Institute in 1984, and both an MFA and MA from the University of California Berkeley in 1986 and 1987, respectively. Since the early eighties his work has been exhibited across the country and internationally. In 1997 Chagoya won the Biennial Award from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, and was formerly the director of the Galería de la Raza in San Francisco. A 25-year survey of his work opened at the Des Moines Art Center in September of 2007. The survey, aptly titled Borderlandia, presents Chagoya’s cultural dualism and his interest in fusing the diverse elements of his life, from his roots in pre-Columbian art and him immersion in American popular culture. Chagoya’s work, illustrative and narrative paintings, drawings, prints, and codices, draws on a long history of satirical art; and studies the complex relationships between his all of his worlds.
Bill Goldston met Enrique Chagoya while participating in The Contemporary Print: Artists and Master Printers, a symposium at Yale University in March of 2007, which replicated the relationship between master printer and artist for the students. Chagoya and Goldston proofed recently etched plates with the Yale students, but soon after Chagoya decided to hand color the editions, and they were published at ULAE. The ensuing prints, Border Patrol on Acid and Thinking Of Ensor and My Cat Diego - the latter a memorial print to Chagoya’s recently deceased cat – were completed in October of 2007.
