Teaching Artist Cohort
2025
Luis Alvaro Sahagún Nuño (b. 1982, Guadalajara, Jalisco, México) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice weaves Mexican craft and curanderismo to reimagine ancestral rituals as transformative acts of healing. Guided by the Medicine Wheel, his decolonial work is a ritual, offering, or meditation on resilience in undocumented communities, labor, and cultural preservation that seeks to reclaim and recontextualize Indigenous traditions, underscoring the potential of art to repair the spiritual, cultural, and historical wounds of colonization.
Sahagún Nuño received a BFA from Southern Illinois University–Carbondale and an MFA from Northern Illinois University. His work is part of the permanent collections of Fidelity, AltaMed, Amir Shariat, and the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art. He has exhibited globally, including at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Ogden Contemporary, Roswell Museum of Arts Center, DePaul Museum, Freeport Art Museum, Charlie James Gallery, the Chicago Cultural Center, Arvika Konsthall (Sweden), the National Museum of Mexican Art, EXPO Chicago, NADA Art Fair, and University of Virginia, amongst others. He has been featured in Artforum, Hyperallergic, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Univision, FOX, NBC, NPR, and The Latinx Project. Sahagún Nuño has received the 3Arts Award and the United States Artist Fellowship (2023).
He currently lives and works in Asheville on unseeded land of Coharie, Eastern Band of Cherokee, Haliwa Saponi, Lumbee, Meherrin, Occaneechi Band of Saponi, Sappony, and Waccamaw-Siouan.
Selected works
“Healing Palette of Mystical Mestizaje,” 2024, installation view. Photo courtesy of the artist.
“Mobile Botanica, (from Healing Palette of Mystical Mestizaje),” 2024. Photo courtesy of the artist.
“Perpetual Ceremony No. 2 (from Healing Palette of Mystical Mestizaje),” 2024. Photo courtesy of the artist.
“Studio as Spiritual Market,” 2024, documentation of performance. Photo courtesy of the artist.
“Limpia: Maria ‘Mariquita’ Rodriguez Sahagun,” 2022, charcoal, paper, amethyst, obsidian, crystals, resin, beads, gorilla glue, rope, joint compound, gold leaf, family photos, found objects, and caulk, 56 x 46 x 4 in. Photo courtesy of the artist.
“Limpia: Tatiana ‘La Taty”Gonzalez Nuño,” 2022, charcoal, paper, amethyst, obsidian, crystals, resin, beads, gorilla glue, rope, joint compound, gold leaf, family photos, found objects, and caulk, 57 x 57 x 4.5 in. Photo courtesy of the artist.
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67 Broadway St, Asheville, NC 28801
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Gallery Hours: Closed — Reopening Fall 2019
