The Artsy Vanguard 2022: Guadalupe Maravilla

Maravilla is perhaps best known for his ferocious “Disease Thrower” series (2019–present), which transforms found objects through microwaved fibers and glue to evoke animal-human hybrid deities from various cultures across Mesoamerica. The sculptures are spiritual and physical protectors meant to cast various colonial-induced illnesses out from the body, and were inspired by Maravilla’s own history with cancer.

The artist is a decade into what he calls his second life. While completing his MFA at Hunter College, Maravilla was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer on his 36th birthday in 2012. To combat the physical toll that radiation treatment had on his body, he turned to non-Euro-American healing practices that, in turn, allowed him to spiritually heal his past trauma stemming from forced migration. Born in El Salvador in 1976, Maravilla fled the country at the age of eight due to civil war, spending two and a half months traveling 3,000 miles by land to the United States.

For Maravilla, the cancer was a manifestation of decades-long trauma in his family history. “I tie it into experiencing a civil war when I was a child, to being displaced and separated from my family, and how that trauma was held in my body,” the artist said. “[I am interested in] how untreated trauma can manifest into cancerous tumors—not that everyone who has untreated trauma will get cancer, but that’s what happened to me.”

Cancer, which Maravilla described as his greatest teacher, forced him to undergo a physical and spiritual rebirth that transformed the trajectory of his artistic practice—as symbolized by his name change. Born Irvin Morazan, Maravilla reclaimed the first name his mother wanted to give him, and took on the surname his father adopted upon arriving in the U.S.

Like Maravilla’s artworks, this name change is as much personal as it is cosmological. A quadruple Sagittarius (placement in his sun, moon, mercury, and ascendant signs), Maravilla was born on December 12th, the Day of the Virgin Guadalupe. Following the saint, Maravilla’s own practice is that of nurturer, healer, and protector.

Working with the medium of the sound bath, which he turned to while undergoing cancer treatment, Maravilla conducts healing ceremonies for his audiences. These performances both activate the “Disease Thrower” works, and exist separately on their own to purge physical and psychic illnesses from the body. Maravilla’s holistic practice is indicative of Toni Morrison’s statement in her 1987 book Beloved: “A dose of the spiritual world is needed to heal the wounds of [colonization].”

As Maravilla said, “If I can heal properly then I can heal seven generations back and seven generations forward. I was taught by lots of different types of healers from all over the world that have learned ancient ways of healing and contemporary ways of healing. From that, I have merged [those practices] to create my own way.”

To confront his familial and ancestral history, Maravilla recently began to retrace his own migrational routes. For his contribution to the 2018 group exhibition “Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay: Indigenous Space, Modern Architecture, New Art” at the Whitney Museum of American Art, he traced over European colonial manuscripts and maps of Mexico and Central America with pencil and crayon.

“Exploring those manuscripts and learning about the history of those lands that I have a connection with was my way of reconnecting and tracing my own migration map,” he said. “After that, I realized that it was time to physically go back and collect materials for my own shrine and then [those objects I collected] made it up to my disease throwers.” From street market trinkets to rare crystals, the objects within these sculptures are buried beneath melted fibers, but imbue the work with an energy that speaks to Maravilla’s artistic intentions.

Healing and rebirth are not just artistic metaphors, but service-based actions Maravilla employs in order to be present for his community. As part of his recent solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, the artist partnered with the institution and his gallery P.P.O.W to organize a donation drive in support of asylum seekers arriving in New York. He collected about 10 truckloads of goods and raised about $30,000 with the help of 40 volunteers, all while conducting healing ceremonies.

“That’s the whole practice: giving and offering care. It’s really hard to do any healing work when someone is hungry, cold, or doesn’t have a safe place to sleep,” Maravilla said. “These come from my own experiences of being displaced and hungry and traveling without my family. I remember all of those things and know what they need.” After this intensive period, he finally finds himself in a state of rest for the remainder of the year before resuming his work in 2023—forever in service to others. He added, “I have to replenish that fire before I can go back out again.”