Z'otz* Collective: Ode to the Inside Out Questions

Virtual Exhibition

Taking its name from the Mayan word for “bat,” Z’otz* Collective consists of three artists with Latin American roots: Nahúm Flores (Honduras), Erik Jerezano (Mexico), and Ilyana Martínez (Mexico/Canada). For over fifteen years, these artists have worked collaboratively out of a shared Toronto studio on drawings, paintings, collages, sculptures, and site-specific installations.

"Their process includes passing work between each other to create authorless art with a dreamlike quality. It’s impossible to tell which artist contributed what; the mix of ink, watercolour, pen, and paint seamlessly bleeds together to create a textured fabric which sits on top of the page. A tiny Z’otz* stamp performs the role of a collective signature: a figure bent over with its arms swung high behind them, as if it were submitting headfirst to the power of art. The imaginations of Flores, Jerezano, and Martínez, now extend to the viewer—the fourth collaborator who naturally projects a narrative onto the art."[1]

Z’otz* Collective has exhibited widely, participating in over 25 solo exhibitions and 40 group exhibitions in Canada, Mexico, the United States, Serbia, and China.

[1] Excerpt from exhibition essay by Tatum Dooley, "Taxonomy of cryptozoology" (2020)