Miguel Castro Leñero is part of an important generation of Mexican artists who revitalized the art scene in Mexico City during the mid-eighties and early nineties. His elegant and elemental compositions, reduced chromatic sense, sensuous surfaces and masterful treatment of paint define him as one of the foremost painters of his generation.
Castro draws inspiration from cities, and is interested in the juxtaposition of opposing themes such as urban and domestic, public and intimate, noise and silence, chaos and order. In a recent series of work, he explores these themes in relation to the use and care of the car in modern society. His canvases are filled with basic automobile shapes and silhouetted, seated passengers. Castro balances these elementary forms with a sophisticated technique: in building up multiple layers of oil paint, he creates a waxy, encaustic-like aesthetic, and leaves previous layers peeking through. The result is an exploration of colour and form in relation to a familiar iconic sign.
Miguel Castro Leñero lives and works in Mexico City. He has exhibited extensively over the past two decades, both in Mexico and abroad. His work is widely collected in Mexico and can be found in several major international collections such as The Metropolitan Museum in New York, Würth Museum in Germany, and Sammlung Essl in Austria.
 
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