Narciso Meneses Elizalde

My name is Narciso Meneses Elizalde. I am an artist originally from Hidalgo, Mexico. I currently live and work in and around Eastern Iowa. I earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Iowa in 2013. I have participated in several exhibitions in Eastern Iowa and beyond since then at Public Space One, Legion Arts, Dubuque Area Arts Collective, The Dubuque Museum of Art, Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, ADC Fine Art, DIY music and art shows, and several others. I, along with the work group Revitalizadores del Papel, received a BFF project grant last year, and we are currently developing our amate paper production project in the Otomí-Tepehua Highlands.

I create polymer clay sculptures and non-fiction writing, through which I promote and celebrate Mesoamerican Indigenous peoples' values and cosmovisions. The sculptures are composed of vibrant swirling color combinations and depict scenes that generally include humans and other-than-human beings performing actions concerning traditional Mesoamerican ritualism, especially in regards to themes of world renewal and participation in universal networks of relations, as expressed through Flower Worlds’ spirituality and related signification systems. These and other related forms of expression are often known as Costumbres, the "Old Ways," and are practiced and created throughout Mesoamerica, Southwest USA, and beyond, from times immemorial to the present. For Indigenous peoples who partake in communion with these mysteries, Flower Worlds are essentially ideal, yet experientially real, deified embodiments of the sacred living Earth as transcendent yet immanent prodigious cosmic expressions of abundance, positivity, healing, and renewal in the living environment.