El Grito Final (mixed media, 2007) stands apart from much of John Sierra’s usual work. While his art often centers on themes of Chicano culture, identity, and family, this piece evokes a much darker tone than his typically soft and colorful style.
Un Curandero (2022) stands out in Sierra’s ever-evolving practice as an artist—a testament to his Mexican-American heritage and his experimentation across media, scale, and technique. While Sierra is widely known for his public murals and large-scale collaborative works, Un Curandero (2022) offers a more introspective, studio-based expression. In this piece, Sierra unravels the edges of the muslin cloth, intentionally fraying its borders. This textile unweaving adds a tactile, handmade quality. Through pastel powder, watercolors, and delicate colored pencil lines, Sierra crafts softness and spectrality. This textural blending creates an effect similar to sfumato, a Renaissance technique characterized by atmospheric diffusion and gentle transitions between tones.
At the center of the composition is a dome-like, glowing figure supported by a radiant pillar structure and anchored by a stem. The figure is symmetrical yet fluid, radiating a spiritual ambiance. Though not explicitly humanoid, the form suggests an otherworldly healer—or curandero—whose presence transcends physicality. Hues of green, pale red, and golden yellow melt together to animate the body, while the faded, cloudlike background suggests a liminal realm between memory and spirit. This piece is presented as a giclée print, a fine art reproduction made through high-resolution inkjet, on an unconventional surface: muslin. Muslin, a lightweight and tightly woven cotton fabric, undergoes a rigorous preparation process in Sierra’s studio—where it becomes alive.
El grito final is part of F. John Sierra Retrospective at Arte Américas.
Written by Arte América’s Cultural Arts Fellow (2025), Brenda Angelica Gutierrez Mora