Sandra Monterroso
Born & Lives in:
Maya Q'qchi', Guatemala
Location
- Art Gallery of New South Wales
Sandra Monterroso is a multidisciplinary artist of Q’qchi’ Mayan descent. She works with sculpture, video, performance, and textiles using natural pigments such as Indigofera, cochineal, turmeric, fustic, chlorophyll, avocado, flowers, and more. Her research and artistic production draws upon decolonial thought, ecofeminism, and the knowledge of Indigenous peoples. In her stylistic approach Monterroso incorporates Mayan spirituality, textiles, and organic materials to create works of art whose signs and levels of meaning invite us to heal colonial wounds and preserve Indigenous knowledge.
Sandra Monterroso, B’ane’k / Ser Sanado / Be Healed, 2025–2026. Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney. Courtesy of the artist and Lucia Ixchíu © Sandra Monterroso. Installation view, 25th Biennale of Sydney, Rememory, 2026, Art Gallery of New South Wales. Photo © Art Gallery of New South Wales, Felicity Jenkins.
Sandra Monterroso
Born 1974, Guatemala City, Guatemala
Lives and works in Guatemala City Maya Qˊeqchiˊ people
The Zig Zag of the Mountain 2024–25
from the series Recipes for healing wounds
embroidered fabric prints, linen, cotton and natural fibre dyed with indigo, turmeric, cochineal, chamomile, annatto, synthetic dye
Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney
Courtesy of the artist and NG Art Gallery
Bˊaneˊk/Ser Sanado/Be Healed 2025–26
single-channel video, sound 10 min
Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney
Courtesy of the artist and Lucia Ixchíu
Sandra Monterroso is a Mayan artist from Guatemala who addresses the cultural, economic, political and territorial dispossession suffered by Indigenous peoples. Her practice revolves around restoring her ancestral cultural heritage and engaging with the artisanal practices of women from the Qˊeqchiˊ community.
Inspired by the 1971 book Mayan priest: aspectos de la medicina popular en el área rural de Guatemala (‘Mayan priest: aspects of popular medicine in rural Guatemala’), The Zig Zag of the Mountain draws on healing recipes founded in the local knowledge of Mayan healers. Here, Monterroso has created a five-panel textile of mural-size proportions. Each panel is dyed using natural pigments – including turmeric, avocado and cochineal – and contains embroidered botanical images printed on fabric. The work is like a textile recipe book, inviting people to heal colonial wounds and preserve Indigenous knowledge.
The recipes in the textile mural are quoted from the pages of Mayan priest on display.