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Enrique Chagoya’s prints, drawings, paintings, and codices in the tradition of satirical cartoons have brought him international recognition. Chagoya skillfully combines contrasting images sourced from secular and religious iconographies and popular culture to address colonialism, inequality, and international conflicts with biting humor. Using familiar pop icons such as Superman and Mickey Mouse, he creates deceptively friendly points of entry for a discussion of US hegemony and colonialism.

Chagoya began making political cartoons in the 1970s for union and student newspapers while studying economics at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Me?xico in Mexico City. He later directed rural development projects in the city of Veracruz, an experience that ignited his burgeoning interest in transnational politics that would eventually become the subject of his art. Chagoya employs a process which he calls “reverse anthropology,” depicting contemporary events on Amate, a type of paper used in traditional Central American bookmaking, folded like an accordion and read from right to left. His subjects range from revisionist histories of British and Spanish settlement in the Americas to challenging racial stereotypes.