Elsa Muñoz
Elsa Muñoz is a Mexican American realist painter from the south side of Chicago. She was born in a neighborhood called La Villita (Little Village), a community composed of predominantly working-class Mexican immigrants. Muñoz credits her interest in nature and healing to her experience growing up in an underserved, unsafe community with little access to green spaces. Having to spend most of her childhood indoors led to the cultivation of a rich inner world in which she was able to find beauty and sanctuary. Muñoz writes, “Beyond any particular message in my work I’m always fundamentally seeking to call upon and transmute my earliest encounters with the natural world – imaginary encounters which filled me with wonder and longing.”
