Biography
Israel Campos is an interdisciplinary Los Angeles-based Chicano artist whose work in mokuhanga, painting, digital media, and artist books draws on Mesoamerican art traditions to explore how historical events reverberate into the present. He graduated with a bachelor's degree from the University of California Santa Cruz in 2011 and received his MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2015.
Campos's artistic practice blends pre-Columbian iconography, generational myths, oral folklore, and contemporary pop culture to collapse the centuries separating different art forms and cultural moments. His work embraces the art traditions stretching from Mesoamerica through the present, creating visual narratives that investigate identity, queerness, and cultural continuity within Chicano experience.
As founder of Chayote Press, named in honor of his grandmother who is affectionately called Chayito, Campos has established a studio space dedicated to providing artists with facilities for print media work. Through Chayote Press, he teaches mokuhanga printmaking courses, making the traditional Japanese technique accessible to artists from diverse cultural backgrounds.
Campos exhibited at the International Mokuhanga Conference juried exhibition in Nara (2021), representing one of the rare Latin American connections within the international mokuhanga community. His work is held in the permanent collections of the Kohler Art Library in Madison, Wisconsin, the University of California Santa Cruz Special Collections and Archives, the Wright Museum of Art in Beloit, Wisconsin, and the Zuckerman Museum of Art in Portland, Oregon, among other institutions.
Key Facts
- Nationality
- 🇲🇽Mexico
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
Frequently Asked Questions
Israel Campos is an interdisciplinary Los Angeles-based Chicano artist whose work in mokuhanga, painting, digital media, and artist books draws on Mesoamerican art traditions to explore how historical events reverberate into the present. He graduated with a bachelor's degree from the University of California Santa Cruz in 2011 and received his MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2015.
Israel Campos's work was shaped by the Contemporary Mokuhanga tradition in Japanese woodblock printmaking. Contemporary Mokuhanga: Contemporary mokuhanga (literally "wood-block print") encompasses artists working from approximately 1970 to the present who continue or reinvent traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques.
Israel Campos's prints frequently feature etching, landscapes, night scenes, portraits, figures, nature.
Israel Campos is a contemporary printmaker working in the mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock) tradition. Their work contributes to the living tradition of Japanese woodblock printing. Prices for contemporary mokuhanga prints range from $100 for smaller works to $1,500 for major compositions. Most prints sell in the $180–$600 range. The global mokuhanga community has been growing, with increasing exhibition opportunities and collector interest. Contemporary mokuhanga represents an affordable entry point for collectors.
