Demetrio Aguilar

We appreciate and love each and every one of our artists, but Demetrio Garcia Aguilar has a very special place in our hearts. Demetrio's clay sculptures tell their very own story in one of Aguilar's most special garments and are, for us, some of the most spectacular contemporary Mexican Day of the Dead art has to offer. The eldest son of the most famous Aguilar sister, Josefina, copied his mother's work so well at the age of 7 that there were collectors for his pieces. And no, of course we are not talking about child labor here, but about families of artists in which the know-how is passed on from generation to generation in order to preserve traditions that are threatened with extinction. Over time, Demetrio developed his very own style based on the tried and tested pottery techniques of the Aguilar clan, opened up completely new chapters in the choice of motifs and, together with his younger brother José Juan, is now quite rightly regarded as the person who has firmly anchored the artistic legacy of the Aguilars in the new millennium. While the foundation of the family tradition developed by the Aguilar sisters consisted primarily of a variety of folk and religious motifs from the state of Oaxaca, Demetrio focused his work almost exclusively on the skull at a very early stage and perfected his very own version of the Mexican skull over the years.While the skulls of his standard sculptures clearly bear the signature of his famous mother, no one from the Aguilar clan can hold a candle to the skulls of his larger figures - here Demetrio Aguilar plays in his very own league and manages to breathe soul into his calaveras in a magical way like no other. Demetrio is a welcome guest at workshops in the USA and Canada, where he inspires art students with his family's archaic pottery tradition and countless of his pieces enrich the collections of Dia de Muertos connoisseurs.