10 Questions with Luis Moro
Luis Moro is a visual artist who works between Spain and Mexico. He received National Prizes for Painting, Engraving and Sculpture in Youth Competitions of Plastic Arts and European Painters in Benidorm between 1985 and 1990; from the Spanish Lyceum in Paris in 1992 and the Castilla y Leon Prize for the Arts in 2022. He won scholarships from the Circle of Fine Arts – workshop Julian Schnabel in 1991, Casa Velazquez in 2002, Gongjü Art Biennial-Korea in 2004, Artist in residence SMART CAM - USA in 2012, CONACULTA Mexico in 2013 and Mº of Culture Spain in 2020. With more than a hundred exhibitions, he participated in fairs in Cologne, Berlin, Madrid, Paris, Rome, Milan, Venice, Lisbon, New York, Houston, Dallas, Miami, Toronto, Shanghai and Hong Kong. He has exhibited at the Goya Castres Museum (FR), the Mouscrom Art Museum (BE), the Luis G. Robles Museum, the Glass Technology Museum, the Esteban Vicente Museum, and currently at MUSAC (SP). The Alameda/Smithsonian and Witte Museums (Texas, USA). And Art Museums of Queretaro; MACAZ (Morelia); MUSA & MUPAG (GDL), MACAY (Merida), Francisco Goitía (Zacatecas), MUPO & IAGO (Oaxaca), Tlalpan, the National Museum of Engraving, and the Mexico City Museum.
Luis Moro - Portrait by Marino Cigüenza
El bramido de la Tierra - The Roar of the Earth
"Luis Moro has spent years contemplating life visually, with a gaze akin to that of an entomologist. 'In fact, in his approach to the world of animals, as Miguel Cereceda wrote in the catalogue for Luis Moro's exhibition Save Our Souls at the Esteban Vicente Museum (2023), more than as a biologist or botanist, Luis Moro approaches them with the tools of an entomologist. He uses a microscope, observes them closely, draws them, classifies them, and paints them.' Luis Moro, genuinely concerned about the destruction of ecosystems, is an artist who acts as a "lucid and honest witness in his version of reality" and, throughout his work, formulates a line of poetic resistance to the "algorithmic driving" of the world that ultimately reduces us to mere data.
Miguel Cereceda points out that Luis Moro's themes have always been strongly linked to a dual concern: 'the relationship between man and nature, exemplified by the recurring and obsessive image of the animal in his work, and the relationship between man and tradition and culture, exemplified primarily by his ongoing conversation with writers, musicians, and poets'. This is, without a doubt, a polyhedral artist who develops his compositions with remarkable fluidity.
A great draftsman who tackles the representation of the natural world to then generate his own visual universe. For years, Luis Moro has trained his gaze, drawing minuscule animals, attuned to the tiniest details of a creature's wing, yet without succumbing to rigid naturalism. Instead, he moves with impressive ease between the figurative and the abstract.
He is acutely aware of the new biophysical processes whose transgression leads to ecological disaster: climate change, ocean acidification, stratospheric ozone depletion, freshwater scarcity, biodiversity loss, disruption of global nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, land-use changes, chemical pollution, and atmospheric aerosol levels.
Unquestionably, this artist embraces Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis, calling for respect for the Earth and all living beings. For decades, we have recklessly endangered the world we inhabit, behaving in a suicidal or delusional manner. Luis Moro's exhibition at MUSAC crystallises images that resonate with the months of pandemic lockdown, when animals and nature seemed to reappear precisely as our destructive frenzy was forced to slow down. We came to understand, in the starkest terms, that catastrophe is not so much triggered by the flutter of a butterfly's wings in the Amazon, but by the viral interconnectedness of the planet. In countless works by Luis Moro, we see wings and fluttering, allegories of flight and the longing for something beyond disaster, symbols of fragility and survival. The Roar of the Earth is, ultimately, a powerful visual call to action: a plea to protect what allows us to exist."
Fernando Castro Flórez
Curator & art critic
Modern times and INRI © Luis Moro
INTERVIEW
Your artistic journey transits continents, from Spain to Mexico, and over a hundred exhibitions worldwide. How have these diverse cultural contexts shaped your perception of nature and the way you express it visually?
Each territory contributes to my cultural understanding, and I am especially influenced by its history, vestiges, and the biodiversity of the environment. For example, in Mexico, my first exhibition there was in Papaloapan, where I was inspired by the monarch butterfly of Michoacan, the state where I held the exhibition at the Morelia Art Museum. There, I studied its metamorphosis, migration, and the symbolism it held for the Purépecha people, representing the return of the souls, which coincided with the Day of the Dead celebrations. I also worked on another series about the Xoloitzcuintles, the Aztec wolf that accompanied the Mexicas on their journey to the underworld. In contrast, in Rome in the nineties, I carried out the Mithraeum exhibition featuring the relationship between man and the bull, which arrived in Italy through the legions that came from Persia. There were several Mithraic temples in the "Eternal City", having an important influence for centuries until Christianity arrived.
Nanuk, Mixed media and collage on a map, 22,8x33,8 in, 2017 © Luis Moro
You’ve received awards and residencies from institutions as varied as Casa Velázquez in France and CONACULTA in Mexico. What experience among these was most transformative for your artistic practice, and why?
I believe that the 1992 prize from the Lycée de Paris opened a new period in my career, as I exhibited in galleries in the French capital, subsequently leading me on my European journey to Berlin and Prague, where I continued my exhibition tour until reaching Italy. This country particularly influenced me because of its mythology and because I was born in Segovia, a Roman city. Especially in the Plaza del Acueducto, I carried out several human actions and land art pieces in the shadow of the architectural colossus, with two thousand years of history in the heart of my city. I titled my first exhibition in a gallery in Trastevere, “Ubis et Orbis”, the city and its orbit, reflecting the influence of our Latin culture throughout the Mediterranean and on our Iberian Peninsula. Through its representations and mythology, it left a strong influence on me. Representation in the animal world and then finding an animistic mysticism surprised me when I travelled to Mesoamerica and saw that shamanic sense in the pre-Hispanic cultures, from cultural syncretism representations that are born in Mexico. I also search for art and spirituality in my own work through nature in exhibitions such as Intangible Spaces, S.O.S Save our Souls, Gaia, or the last one of the Roar of the Earth in the MUSAC of Leon.
Your work navigates between diverse media, like painting, engraving, and sculpture, each with its own language. How do you decide which medium best serves the idea or emotion you want to convey? Many critics describe your gaze as “entomological”, analytical, yet deeply poetic. Could you describe your process of observing and translating the natural world into your visual universe?
From childhood, I observed nature through a microscope. This led to series like Microcosmos, Elemental Paradises, and now the film Microworlds, filmed in recent years between Spain and Oaxaca. In this film, I study tiny beings and their catharsis, from birth and growth to transformation, before returning to nature, reintegrating and giving rise to the circle of life. This transformation materialises, fulfilling a life cycle. A tiny particle in the cosmos reflects universal structures, ancestral secrets, the magic of life in its metamorphosis.
The recurring presence of animals in your work embodies both fragility and resistance. How do you view the animal as a metaphor in relation to humanity’s place within the ecosystem?
As I wrote in one of my catalogues, Sequences: "Animals are an excuse to talk about other things, although the universe tells one of them in every small being."
The fluttering of the butterfly's wings, Mixed media and embroidery on canvas, 55x87 in, 2025 © Luis Moro
Big fish - Omens Series, Mixed media on press paper, 3,3 x 5,5 in, 2019-2024 © Luis Moro
Let’s focus on your recent exhibition, El bramido de la Tierra. The project reflects your deep ecological consciousness and references the Gaia Hypothesis. Do you see art as a form of environmental activism or as a more introspective, spiritual dialogue with nature?
I believe that art, from its origins, has had a shamanic spirit in communion with our environment, with the planet, with nature, creating a dialogue with our essence and our unknowns. Humankind, observing a hostile planet in the beginning, which it wished to control and dominate, now, in the 21st century, has no rival except ourselves. We still fight like tribal primates (now intoxicated with technology) for territorial dominance to control the planet, exploiting resources to the maximum in a frenzied race. This I reflected in series like "Blind Runners" where we ride recklessly like racehorses at such a speed that we are being overtaken, watching as we go off the road due to the speed on the next curve. All the while, we continue pressing the accelerator like a teenager intoxicated by unlimited acceleration.
The exhibition at MUSAC, curated by Fernando Castro Flórez, positions your work as a “plea to protect what allows us to exist.” How did this collaboration shape the final presentation, and what dialogues did you hope to generate with audiences?
The Roar of the Earth is an exhibition for which I created sketches before and during the pandemic. The Museum of Mexico City proposed an exhibition that would establish a relationship with the urban environment. My initial idea was to imagine the Valley of Mexico with Lake Texcoco, which gradually became urbanised, first as the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan and then as Mexico City, one of the most populated cities on the planet. I imagined how the animals that lived in that valley lost territory due to the unchecked growth of humankind, and how they were left in small pockets, giving rise to the exhibition Animal Resistance, which ended just as the pandemic and lockdowns began to spread. Photos and images began arriving from friends in different cities who had seen the sketches through social media. Many of these ideas were becoming reality, and animals were reclaiming their spaces due to human confinement. Dreams were materialising, sometimes possessing a prophetic quality. Deer were seen at the foot of the aqueduct, various mammals were entering urban areas, and nature was reclaiming its space, as happened in Chernobyl when it was abandoned. Ultimately, it was a short-lived dream, as within a few months, so-called normality returned. The streets were once again filled with cars and trucks, and the animals returned to their natural refuges. But they remained captured in small sketches, which I later exhibited at the MUSAC, and some in large format, thanks to the public's complicity. They shared their stories and experiences with me, including one about a peacock that had to be removed from a balcony in León, which was featured in the press during the exhibition. Just begun, it is as if nature wanted to speak through its small beings and, with their roar making the planet tremble on some occasions and with floods or overflows like some drawings of the exhibition, that natural and unstoppable roar.
The Roar of the Earth, Mixed media and collage on cardboard, 63x94 in, 2025 © Luis Moro
Four scenes - Omens Series, Mixed media on press paper,m 5,7 x 7,7 in, 2019-2024 © Luis Moro
Viewers often describe your compositions as oscillating between the microscopic and the cosmic. How do audiences in different countries respond to this interplay between scientific observation and poetic imagination?
In each country, they connect in different ways according to their culture. Perhaps the purest and most pristine feeling is in children who are not yet mediated by an excess of information, allowing them to speak from the heart. They don't understand where the adult world is headed, but without realising it, they find themselves running on a wheel like a mouse, where they have to move quickly to keep up with an industrial society and technological development in the form of a race with other countries, where competition is the rhythm they set for us. In this, the winner is whoever arrives first and keeps running because others arrive behind like "blind runners".
You’ve spoken of a “particle in the microcosm revealing universal structures.” How does this concept guide your current or upcoming projects?
Perhaps now is a time for reflection, a chance to reconnect with schools and rediscover that playful, fun aspect of life with children. We find ourselves swept along in this aforementioned race, a race that carries us all like a wave out to sea, until we lose touch with land and find ourselves adrift in the chaos. I occasionally try to reconnect with the earth and return to my roots.
Omens Series, 2019-24 © Luis Moro
Are you exploring new forms of metamorphosis or interconnection in your latest work? Finally, as you look toward future exhibitions, how do you envision the evolution of your artistic language? Do you see yourself integrating new technologies, materials, or perhaps collaborations with scientists or environmental thinkers?
I like the integration with poetry, film, videos (I continue recording my surroundings, sometimes what goes most unnoticed), and collaborating with poets and scholars. Now, after projecting in Borges' Labyrinth, thanks to its scholars, I am discovering its more oriental and Sufi side. Also, new technologies to build a bridge with the generations that have been educated with these resources, so that later, like the wave of the sea, I can let go of everything to lie on the sand. In doing so, observing the night and the stars, there is all the magic of the universe and that firmament full of light in each small, fragile, and brilliant firefly.
Artist’s Talk
Al-Tiba9 Interviews is a curated promotional platform that offers artists the opportunity to articulate their vision and engage with our diverse international readership through insightful, published dialogues. Conducted by Mohamed Benhadj, founder and curator of Al-Tiba9, these interviews spotlight the artists’ creative journeys and introduce their work to the global contemporary art scene.
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