Nicolás Echevarría
Galerie Pepe is pleased to present an exhibition by filmmaker Nicolás Echevarría (MX, b. 1947). April 23rd - June 27th, 2026
After all these years of working together with Pepe, and after recently arriving back to Mexico from Europe, curious about how the new gallery is going, I heard about one of the projects which immediately became to me the most exciting within my typical art world context: that he will open an exhibition with works by Nicolás Echevarría, the director of the film Cabeza de Vaca. The immediate excitement likely came above all because many years ago Pepe introduced me to the book and to these very particular spiritual perspectives, not only as compelling forms of storytelling, but as ways of connecting the inner imagination to realities, offering a most exciting mode of perceiving a world that is not only culturally very different.
Approaching his works from a distant artistic environment, not only in a cultural sense, but from an environment that is largely an artistic island shaped by an extreme secular denial of any imaginative possibility of representing non-secular world. I was extremely delighted to read and view all these works by Nicolás Echevarría as if they were courageous messages, produced and delivered to me as testimonies of modes of art production I had latently feared might be lost under the weight of contemporary cultural institutional conditions. Although this has been a concern for many artists for centuries, it now somehow appears to me as if it might return again soon with immense gravity.
The point is that the drawings in this exhibition are not just about a still common interest in cultural difference, but that they are a practice and a reality of interior healing. My artistic thrill in this exhibition comes from its attempt to make art not only for depicting external spiritual phenomena, but also because the works directly engage with the artist’s inner movements. Similarly, the Cabeza de Vaca story does not derive its particular gravity solely from its journey through distant and, to me, radically different cultural environments, but from the way it follows almost incomparably the protagonist’s inner metamorphosis, as he gradually becomes the healer he hesitantly comes to realize he is. The simultaneity of these two journeys constitutes a double exhilaration for me as an art world practitioner.
Josef Strau
For his first solo exhibition, Nicolás Echevarría unveils a deeply personal selection of drawings and illuminated scripts that expand his storytelling beyond the screen. Known for his evocative cinematic language and exploration of myth, ritual, and cultural identity, Echevarría turns to intricate, hand-crafted works that merge image and text, drawing inspiration from his dreams, indigenous traditions and historical codexes. This exhibition offers an intimate glimpse into Echevarría’s creative process, where each work reflects a meditative dialogue between light, narrative and memory, a new dimension of his artistic vision full of spiritual symbolism.
After all these years of working together with Pepe, and after recently arriving back to Mexico from Europe, curious about how the new gallery is going, I heard about one of the projects which immediately became to me the most exciting within my typical art world context: that he will open an exhibition with works by Nicolás Echevarría, the director of the film Cabeza de Vaca. The immediate excitement likely came above all because many years ago Pepe introduced me to the book and to these very particular spiritual perspectives, not only as compelling forms of storytelling, but as ways of connecting the inner imagination to realities, offering a most exciting mode of perceiving a world that is not only culturally very different.
Approaching his works from a distant artistic environment, not only in a cultural sense, but from an environment that is largely an artistic island shaped by an extreme secular denial of any imaginative possibility of representing non-secular world. I was extremely delighted to read and view all these works by Nicolás Echevarría as if they were courageous messages, produced and delivered to me as testimonies of modes of art production I had latently feared might be lost under the weight of contemporary cultural institutional conditions. Although this has been a concern for many artists for centuries, it now somehow appears to me as if it might return again soon with immense gravity.
The point is that the drawings in this exhibition are not just about a still common interest in cultural difference, but that they are a practice and a reality of interior healing. My artistic thrill in this exhibition comes from its attempt to make art not only for depicting external spiritual phenomena, but also because the works directly engage with the artist’s inner movements. Similarly, the Cabeza de Vaca story does not derive its particular gravity solely from its journey through distant and, to me, radically different cultural environments, but from the way it follows almost incomparably the protagonist’s inner metamorphosis, as he gradually becomes the healer he hesitantly comes to realize he is. The simultaneity of these two journeys constitutes a double exhilaration for me as an art world practitioner.
Josef Strau
For his first solo exhibition, Nicolás Echevarría unveils a deeply personal selection of drawings and illuminated scripts that expand his storytelling beyond the screen. Known for his evocative cinematic language and exploration of myth, ritual, and cultural identity, Echevarría turns to intricate, hand-crafted works that merge image and text, drawing inspiration from his dreams, indigenous traditions and historical codexes. This exhibition offers an intimate glimpse into Echevarría’s creative process, where each work reflects a meditative dialogue between light, narrative and memory, a new dimension of his artistic vision full of spiritual symbolism.
Nicolás Echevarría,
Señalando al jabalí negro, 2024
, Gouache
, 22.5 x 30 cm
, 8 7/8 x 11 3/4 in
, (NE-004)
Nicolás Echevarría,
Tigre con cuernos, 2024
, Gouache
, 37.5 x 28 cm,
14 3/4 x 11 in,
(NE-005)
Nicolás Echevarría
, Tigre como indio Cora, 2024
, Gouache
, 37.5 x 28 cm,
14 3/4 x 11 in
, (NE-006)
Nicolás Echevarría
, Tigre con rana, 2024
, Gouache
, 37.5 x 28 cm
, 14 3/4 x 11 in
, (NE-007)
Nicolás Echevarría
, Cipactli como tortuga, nd,
Mixed media
, 21 x 28.5 cm
, 8 1/4 x 11 1/4 in
, (NE-001)
Nicolás Echevarría,
Hombre y tigre, 2024,
Gouache, 29.5 x 28 cm
, 11 5/8 x 11 in
, (NE-002)
Nicolás Echevarría
, Sueño con Susana, 2024,
Gouache
, 29.5 x 28 cm
, 11 5/8 x 11 in,
(NE-003)
Nicolás Echevarría,
Rostro con máscara de gas, 2024
, Gouache
, 38 x 29.5 cm
, 15 x 11 5/8 in,
(NE-008)
Nicolás Echevarría
, Rostro calavera, 2024
, Gouache,
38 x 29.5 cm,
15 x 11 5/8 in,
(NE-009)
Nicolás Echevarría,
Rostro con cabello de cintas, 2024
, Gouache
, 38 x 29.5 cm
, 15 x 11 5/8 in, (NE-010)
Nicolás Echevarría,
Rostro con pelo verde, 2024,
Gouache
, 38 x 29.5 cm
, 15 x 11 5/8 in
, (NE-011)
Nicolás Echevarría,
Rostro negro con antifaz blanco, 2024
, Gouache
, 38 x 29.5 cm
, 15 x 11 5/8 in
, (NE-012)
Nicolás Echevarría,
El jinete azul, 2024,
Gouache,
22.5 x 30 cm
, 8 7/8 x 11 3/4 in,
(NE-013)
Nicolás Echevarría
, La trampa del murciélago, 2024,
Gouache,
28 x 38 cm,
11 x 15 in
, (NE-016)
Nicolás Echevarría
, Árbol y fruta fértil, 2024
, Gouache
, 28 x 38 cm
, 11 x 15 in
, (NE-015)
Nicolás Echevarría,
Ixquic y el árbol, 2024
, Gouache
, 28 x 38 cm
, 11 x 15 in
, (NE-014)
Nicolás Echevarría
, Vucub papagayo, 2024,
Gouache
, 30.5 x 21.5 cm
, 12 x 8 1/2 in,
(NE-017)
Nicolás Echevarría,
La abuela Ixcucamé, 2024,
Gouache
, 30.5 x 21.5 cm
, 12 x 8 1/2 in
, (NE-018)
Nicolás Echevarría
, Rostro negro jaspeado azul y verde, 2024
, Gouache
, 31.5 x 23.5 cm,
12 3/8 x 9 1/4 in,
(NE-019)
Nicolás Echevarría,
Hombre y serpiente, 2024
, Gouache
, 30 x 23 cm
, 11 3/4 x 9 in,
(NE-022)
Nicolás Echevarría
, Abstracto 1, 2015
, Gouache
, 29.5 x 39 cm,
11 5/8 x 15 3/8 in,
(NE-024)
Nicolás Echevarría
, Hombres encajonados, 2024
, Gouache
, 29.5 x 39 cm
, 11 5/8 x 15 3/8 in
, (NE-025)
Nicolás Echevarría
, Desnudo meditando, 2017
, Gouache
, 49 x 32 cm,
19 1/4 x 12 5/8 in
, (NE-026)
Nicolás Echevarría
, Desnudo sentada, 2017
, Gouache
, 36 x 27 cm,
14 1/8 x 10 5/8 in,
(NE-027)
Nicolás Echevarría is a Mexican artist, musician, producer, director, screenwriter, photographer, and documentary filmmaker. He received the National Prize for Sciences and Arts of Mexico in the Fine Arts category in 2017. He was recognized by the Mexican Academy of Film Arts and Sciences with the Silver Ariel Award for Best Documentary for the short film Teshuinada, Semana Santa Tarahumara (1979). He was nominated four times in various categories for the short films Poetas campesinos (1980), Niño Fidencio, el taumaturgo de Espinazo (1981), for the film Cabeza de Vaca (1990), and for the feature-length documentary Eco en la Montaña (2014). In 1973, he made his first documentaries related to the indigenous world, including Judea, Semana Santa entre los Coras (1974); La peregrinación del Peyote entre los huicholes (1975); Híkuri Tame (1977); María Sabina, Mujer Espíritu (1979).
Amsterdam 123 B, Col. Hipódromo CondesaMexico City, Mexico 06100