Daniel Guzmán

The drawing series Chromosome Damage, by Mexican artist Daniel Guzmán (born 1965), references the imagery and iconography of the Aztec religion. Each of the 100 drawings, in pastels, charcoal and ink, represents a single female deity morphing into a natural element.

Daniel Guzmán, born in Mexico City in 1964, is one of the most important artists of his country's internationally acclaimed new generation, as well as one of the first to be shown by the influential Mexico City gallery, kurimanzutto, in 1999. Known for his revealing drawing installations, which have figured such diverse figures as Robert DeNiro's Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver, Cupid and Gene Simmons of Kiss, he combines abstract and figurative works with freewheeling comic strip-like texts that hint of love and hate, violence and sexuality, chaos and magic. Guzmán's work will be subject of a major touring exhibition, curated by Richard Flood, that begins in 2008 at the highly anticipated SANAA-redesigned New Museum in New York. Lost & Found, a beautifully printed, oversized collection of Guzmán's trademark drawings and clippings constitutes a concise self-portrait in 64 pages. It is the first book to make Guzmán's work widely available internationally.