Porfirio Gutierrez
Porfirio Gutiérrez is a California-based Zapotec textile artist and natural dyer whose life work is dedicated to revitalizing and preserving traditional natural dyeing techniques. Gutierrez was born and raised in the richly historic Zapotec textile community of Teotitlán del Valle in Oaxaca, Mexico. His grounding in Zapotec traditional knowledge manifests in his textiles — reinterpreting the traditional weaving language, subverting and re-imagining symbols and forms, and morphing his textile designs toward the spaces of architecture and the movement he sees in cities and urban environments. Gutierrez remarked, “I am one thread of life connecting the past and the present. My designs draw deeply on my experiences of two cultures, moving between the traditional and the modern, but always reliant on the deep knowledge and spiritual dimensions of my work.”
