Natural Identity:Luis Figuora, Noormah Jamal & Salvador Jimenez-Florex
Zona Maco, Mexico City Booth EJ12 Feb 4 - 8, 2026
KATES-FERRI PROJECTS is proud to be participating at Zona Maco in the special projects section “EJES” (Booth EJ12) curated by Aimé Iglesias Lukin, with an exhibition titled “Natural Identity”, featuring works by artists Luis Figueroa, Noormah Jamal and Salvador Jimenez-Flores.
Using different mediums – from paintings to sculptural works in ceramic and glass – the three artists utilize imagery of the natural world (such as flowers, cacti, insects) as an inspiration for their personal narratives about identity.
Front and center in the booth, Salvador Jimenez Flores (Mexico) glass-blown sculptures, titled Sediento de ti y harto de ti, explore national identity, double consciousness, and the politics of “the other”. These hybrid cactus forms (created at the Corning Museum of Glass in New York) embody the resilience of the Latinx immigrant experience while reflecting the layered histories of colonization, migration, and cultural survival in the United States. “I examine the tension of being both visible and invisible inhabiting an adopted country while being denied full belonging. The glass sculptures capture this in-between state, revealing the fragility and resilience of hybrid identities shaped by systems of exclusion and historical amnesia.” Rooted in the symbolic power of the nopal cactus, these seductive glass forms with their reflective surfaces act as a mirror, inviting viewers to confront their own place within the social and political realities we collectively inhabit.
Luis Figueroa (Venezuela) presents a series of biomorphic paintings exploring themes of transformation and identity. Some of the paintings depicts moths’ wings. Moths symbolize change and potential for re-birth, while evoking the complexity of evolving identities, with Figueroa’s use of high gloss varnish emphasizing the tension between surface and depth inherent in such identities. Another painting depicts palm trees burning in the night, as in a ceremonial act of purification. With their references to nocturnal insects and imagery, Figueroa’s paintings subtly convey that a deep transformation is underway.
Noormah Jamal (Pakistan) creates ceramic ‘weeds’ with surrealist heads popping out of the corners and seams of the booth. By exemplifying plant life’s resilience and ability to grow in difficult conditions, the weeds capture the immigrant experience. “Some spaces of neglect breed dreamers: the want, the need to be seen. Yet, you are unplanned. Unwanted. Unpleasant to most. Much like the way people relate to weeds, acceptance often depends on perception: if you’re colorful or pretty enough, maybe you’re seen as a flower. If not, you’re dismissed as a weed, something unwanted, to be plucked and discarded”. Tellingly, Noormah’s sculptures are scattered around the walls, seeking attention and visibility, while bravely reaching out to interact with the other artworks.
“Natural Identity” engages the viewers in a conversation about the complexity and meaning of identity in a world dominated by migratory flows, seeking answers – or perhaps just comfort and reassurance – in the natural elements surrounding us.