CDMX: Zone, week and sustainable Mexican artist

In the last few weeks, CDMX had the great opportunity to host again, and now for 20 years, a week and fair dedicated to the most important contemporary, modern art, photography, design and antique dealers in Latin America, under the name 'Zona Maco'.

At the end of 2024, I had the pleasure of meeting an excellent visual artist and person, Rita Sánchez Domínguez, who reminded me once again of the key role that art and specifically painting can play in influencing and contributing to the thousands of projects and actions that we require in favor of the environment.
In the last few weeks, CDMX had the great opportunity to host again, and now for 20 years, a week and fair dedicated to the most important contemporary, modern art, photography, design and antique dealers in Latin America, under the name "Zona Maco". It literally turns the city into a catwalk of artists, parallel events throughout the city and Rita shared with me her perspective of the great week from the perspective of an artist and sustainability.

Rita is a Mexican visual artist internationally recognized by UNESCO and INBAL for her impeccable technique. Her work has been exhibited at the Palacio de las Bellas Artes, Mexico City and in different countries.
Since she was a child, her passion for animals has led her to visit zoos, sanctuaries and aquariums around the world. It should be noted that she is not in favor of seeing animals in cages, but she told me

“I am aware that it is the way to take care of them, reproduce them and make them known to every person, regardless of age, who has no way of seeing them in their natural state.

I think that through education is how a child can respect and take care of everything, from water, trees and know that, in this great circle of life, every animal must be respected, that we are invaders of their space and we must learn to live together. Working to protect the oceans, our largest producer of oxygen, from caring for even the smallest species.”

When Rita began to work on the “Fauna” collection, her first work was an elephant, on a 150 X 100 cm canvas, and she continued with a rhinoceros of the same size, hippos, Mexican wolf, with the giraffes that were suddenly already on the list of endangered animals, the whale, and Rita mentions “just like with the horses, I was finding in the looks of all the cries for help, the soul of each one, the need to be shown.”
Something that amazed the entire population was that, during Covid19, whales, deer and many other species began to be seen where before it was no longer possible, nature had had the opportunity to rest and grow again in number and space.

“Man quickly managed to leave his house and forgot everything again, so art reminds us that we humans are the guests on this great planet”

I include some of Rita’s works in this column and she told me the following:

“I have to continue painting them, just like the cacti and magueys that are home to so many. So from the dragonfly that reached 75 cm from tip to tip of the wings, to an ant you will see in my works. It is also my way of thanking the joy that it gives me to see the beauty of each animal, plant, tree, water.”
Rita in Zona Maco 2025:

Rita who for the fifth time has had a presence at the most important Art Fair in Latin America, which is dressed with the work in trend, signature and renowned work worthy of a collection or museum, monumental pieces full of color, texture, proposals that communicate to the spectator the sensations of the artist and the refinement. Zona Maco comprises four spaces, Design, Antiques Hall, Photography and Modern and Contemporary Art.

You need to visit the exhibition more than once to fully appreciate the beauty of each space. This year Rita has brought two pieces from her new collection “Nopales y Magueyes”. As always, her shades have attracted the public's attention, the use of natural pigments gives the color an unmatched transparency.
In the work “Higos Chungos”, mixed media on canvas, measuring 100 x 50 cm, the greens in all their shades and violet reds of the chungos figs gain strength against a Mexican Pink background. As you get closer you find a number of bugs that freely coexist making the nopales their habitat.

Rita speaks to us on this occasion about the importance of the world's cacti as a home for thousands of organisms. Highlighting one as important as La Grana Cochinilla, a dye that through a careful process has been used by our ancestors to give the most spectacular and pure red in fabrics, canvases, clay art, even cave paintings, among others.

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