Skip to content BIO
Emiliano Mondragón (b. 1996, Mexico City, Mexico) is a contemporary painter based in Hamburg, Germany. He works primarily in mixed-medium painting centered on oil, complemented by acrylic and spray paint, charcoal, pastels, and collage on raw-colored canvas. Mondragón is best known for a non-realistic figurative language in which body fragments —sourced from online media, printed magazines, and Old Master paintings— are recombined to form new hybrid characters assembled from different limbs, torsos, and heads. His works are distinguished by rich physical and visual textures, a confident chromatic sensibility, and backgrounds composed of solid color fields and subtle gradients that create narrow spatial environments.
Mondragón’s practice engages with contemporary reflections on the human condition, focusing on the pressures of constant visibility on social media, the desire to escapes from one’s own body, and the constant feeling of burnout produced by hyperconnectivity and high-performance social expectations. His paintings often incorporate references to popular culture and diverse mythologies —especially Aztec—, which he reinterprets through a fragmented, psychologically charged lens. Through these concerns, he’s been developing a body of work in which figures occupy claustrophobic spaces that mirror the psychological compression of the present moment.
Emiliano Mondragón has exhibited at ICAT in Hamburg, Germany; the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg, Germany; the Museum of Geology in Mexico City; Laboral in Mexico City; and Moloch in Mexico City, Mexico. His works are held in private collections in Mexico, the United States, Germany, and Spain. He has also participated as a moderator in the round table Art From the Heart of Coyoacan, Hidden Talents: The Art of Our Neighborhood at EM Art Gallery in Mexico City.
CV
Born in Mexico City, 1996.
Lives and works in Hamburg, Germany.
Education:
2024- MA in Painting and Drawing, Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Hamburg.
2018-2022 BA Fine Arts, Morelos Art Center.
Selected Exhibitions:
2025 Fragile Uncertainties (group exhibition), ICAT, Hamburg, Germany
Annual Exhibition (group exhibition), Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Hamburg, Germany
2024 Nature as a political metaphor (group exhibition), Geology Museum, Mexico City
Bonsai: Blooming While Losing (group exhibition), Laboral, Mexico City
Something Foolish (group exhibition), Venus Art Gallery, Mexico City
Opening Night (group exhibition), Venus Art Gallery, Mexico City
Open Studio (group exhibition), Berlin Haus, Mexico City
2023 Art From the Heart of Coyoacan, Hidden Talents: The Art of Our Neighborhood (group exhibition), EM Art Gallery Café, Mexico City
Becoming Fungi (group exhibition), Moloch Gallery, Mexico City
2022 If I Could Put It on Words (solo exhibition), Victoria Gallery, Cuernavaca, Morelos
2021 Entropy (group exhibition), Morelos Art Center, Cuernavaca, Morelos
Together Through Painting (online group exhibition), London Paint Club
2020 The Storm (group exhibition), Teopanzolco Cultural Center, Cuernavaca, Morelos
North-South MX (online group exhibition), North-South MX
Clandestine (online group exhibition), Clandestino Cultural
Library Project (online group exhibition), Experimento Impreso
2019 Territories (group exhibition), UAEM Faculty of Arts, Cuernavaca, Morelos
Dialectics Between the Limit and the Stroke (group exhibition), Miners Cultural Center, Mexico City
2018 Yokoyama Space (group exhibition), Cantinita Pop, Mexico City
2015 Bifurcations (group exhibition), Casona Spencer Museum, Cuernavaca, Morelos
Selected collections:
Emiliano Mondragon is collected by various private collectors in Mexico, EUA and Spain.
Publications:
2026 Schön! Magazine. (February). emiliano mondragón | portraits of digital burnout.
Podroom. (January). Emiliano Mondragón’s Figuration under Constraint.
2023 Henao Arias, John Fredy. Corroded Minds (p. 153). Caldas: Wounded Word.
2022 Textos.mx. (July). The Defeat.
2021 Fittipaldi, Guido & Queretz, Jan. The Party Alongside the River (p. 52). Caracas: Casapaís.
Zompantle Magazine. (July). The Cowbird.
Zompantle Magazine. (July). Autumn Scene.
Professional contributions:
2024 Moderator at the round table Art From the Heart of Coyoacan, Hidden Talents: The Art of Our Neighborhood, EM Art Gallery Café, Mexico City
2019 Curator at Continues, UAEM Faculty of Arts, Cuernavaca, Morelos
Co-curator at Fragile Like Masculinity, Museum of Cuernavaca City, Morelos
Curator at From the Everyday to Art, Luciana Cabarga Gallery, Cuernavaca, Morelos
