Green Vines

Eduardo Sarabia collaborated with Oklahoma City mural artist TANK to transform the surfaces of this building using his signature vine imagery. The vines come from Sarabia’s memory of his childhood neighborhood in Los Angeles, where community members decorated the facades of their houses with floral motifs. In Mayan culture, plants—particularly the ceiba trees common in Sarabia’s works—serve as axis mundi, or a cosmic pillar that connects heaven and earth. The results point to the continued influence of Mesoamerican culture north of the border, and the past in the present.

This work was originally presented as part of La casa que nos inventamos: Contemporary Art From Guadalajara, which ran Sept. 23, 2022-Jan. 9, 2023.