Los Fantasmas Artist Collective
Los Fantasmas emerges from the spaces between histories, identities, and imagined futures. Named after fantasmas, "ghosts" or "the unseen," the collective celebrates brown and indigenous people of color as well as marginalized individuals often unrecognized for their contributions. As artists of Chicanx, Latinx, and Indigenous descent, we come together -- each with distinct voices, mediums, and practices -- to create work that resists erasure and reclaims visibility. The artists gather together to provide diverse perspectives bound by shared roots and a commitment to community.
Through their varied approaches, the group honors the stories of those who came before, confront the forces that seek to divide us, and build bridges for those yet to come. Art becomes both a shield and offering--a way to connect, to challenge, to remember, to disrupt complacency, and to foster spaces where dialogue, belonging, and transformation can thrive.
History
Los Fantasmas Artist Collective was developed in the late 1990s by Carlos Fresquez, Tony Diego, Ismael Lozano and Josiah Lopez as a response to the local art scene that in our view treated BIPOC artists as “fantasmas” (ghosts) or “the unseen”. Now consisting of six Indigenous, Chicano, and Raza identifying artists, Los Fantasmas is dedicated to our communities to broaden the scope of venues available to BIPOC Artists throughout the Denver and greater Colorado area.
Throughout its history, LFAC has organized such events as Urban Decay, which transformed the Chicano Arts and Humanities Council Gallery into a vision that reflected the decay of the urban Chicano Neighborhood in which it was located. We participated in exhibits and panel discussions at the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center in Pueblo Colorado. We also curated a Dia de Muertos Exhibit with community discussions in Trinidad Colorado at the Corazon Gallery. More recently, LFAC has collaborated with youth organizations such as Colorado Circles for Change, Gang Rescue and Support Project, and the Denver Juvenile Diversion to facilitate classes for youth to participate in art exhibits alongside established artists. Raza Futura, our most recent exhibit was held at the Hideout Gallery and continued the vision. The exhibit included work from LFAC founding members, several upcoming artists, college students and youth artists following our original vision and mission to create space for the unseen BIPOC artist.
TEAM MEMBERS
Carlos Fresquez
Carlos has exhibited in over 30 U.S. states and over a dozen different countries. He has lectured about Chicano Art history and his own artwork at many colleges, universities, galleries and art centers including Ohio Wesleyan University, The Bronx Museum, Las Bellas Artes in Mexico City and The National Museum of American Art - The Smithsonian.
Selected traveling exhibitions; Arte Caliente (2005-2007); The Colorado Artist Fellowship Awards Exhibition (1997); The Chicano Codices; Encountering Art of the Americas (1992-1994); Rasquachismo; Chicano Aesthetics (1988-1989); and the groundbreaking exhibition; CARA - Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation (1990-1993).
Selected awards include; Best New Public Art - Westword and Reader’s Choice, Denver, CO 2010, The Spirit of Tlatelolco Art and Culture Award, Escuela Tlatelolco, Denver, CO 2010, Artist in the Community, NEWSED 25th Annual Civil Rights Award, Denver, CO 2016 and the prestigious Bonfils Stanton Foundation, Artist Award, 2018.
Tony A. Diego
Tony Diego is an artist that has lived and worked in Colorado for nearly 50 years. Tony earned his Fine Arts Degree with a Human Services Minor from Metropolitan State University in Denver Colorado. He has facilitated and directed youth art and restitution programs in urban and rural Colorado for over 20 years. His passions are art, travel, culture, and long hours listening to amazing music while working in his studio.
Tony facilitates Men’s Healing groups that promote connections and respect of our mother earth and the ancestors who have come before us. Colorado is Tony’s home however his life has been forever enriched from having the honor and privilege of seeing art in person from all over the US including New York, LA, and Santa Fe, and internationally in places like Germany and Paris and as far south as Lima Peru and Santiago Chile.
Tony’s current paintings cross over from conceptual art to artivism. He incorporates scenes that are both beautiful to the viewer's eye and portray a message that invites the viewer to take a deeper and longer look. Using indigenous images and focusing on scenes from the southern US, Mexico and South America Tony seeks to enrich the viewing experience while offering opportunities to see our world through a critical lens.
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Izzy Lozano
Izzy (Ismael) Lozano is a Denver native, born and bred Chicano, and has has been making art primarily through the medium of Oil Painting for the last 30 years. Married with two daughters and a grandson, he currently teaches two-dimensional art foundations at Metropolitan State University of Denver, and Oil, Acrylics and Watercolor at Washington Heights Art Center and Lakewood Cultural Art Center. He owns and operates his interior/exterior painting company, Artistic Interiors of Colorado, serving the Denver Metro area painting needs. He is a founding member of Los Phantasmas and has been showing with this group for 25 years. Being with Los Phantasmas has given him an opportunity to explore his cultural identity, engage in political discourse and use principles found in classical painting to express his artistic vision.
Grace Gutierrez
Grace Gutierrez is a Longmont, Colorado based artist working in a variety of mediums including painting, ceramics, sculpture, and video art.
Her work celebrates her mixed-race, Chicanxa identity, and is a response to deeply personal experiences as well as her family’s experiences navigating culture, heritage, and stereotypes. She is inspired by Mexican folk art, folklore, and literature.
Constant reflection of community and cultural pride helps Grace build sentimental narratives to encourage empathy, equity, and pride within our communities.
Grace was born and raised in Longmont, Colorado where she still resides, working to expand creative opportunities for local artists. Grace received her BFA with an emphasis in painting and ceramics from Metropolitan State University of Denver in 2020.
Morgan DeVillier-Haning
Morgan is a Denver Metro based artist. Her focus is on how her diverse ancestry shapes her identity and blurs lines between belonging. She utilizes acrylic paint, photography, mixed media, and written word to create. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art with a minor in Anthropology. Her interests in creating are driven by her curiosity to understand the current social and environmental state of the world and how it impacts daily life. Morgan’s art practice continues to develop as she explores herself as a person of color, multi-racial and white passing, as an American citizen, a Coloradan, a human being, and an anthropological and environmental observer.
“My art practice explores my diverse ancestry and blurs the lines between belonging and identity by considering humanness, duality, globalization, and the natural world. I often question what it means to be human, ponder our relationship to the natural world, and consider how social climates impact what it means to be alive today. In my current practice , I explore mundane human-made objects in the contemporary west and consider their relevance to my identity.”
Micah Ramirez
Micah Ramirez (they/them) is an interdisciplinary Chicana artist, advocate, and community member. Their work in the community greatly informs their artistic practice which they use to bring attention to complex intersectional issues faced by their community. Issues of particular importance to them include: sexual/gender based violence, bodily autonomy and reproductive justice, Queer liberation, and breaking cycles of abuse.
They explore these topics through a personal and spiritual lens, using their background in Critical Theory to draw connections between their own experiences and larger societal and cultural systems that affect us all. Using imagery and symbolism that has historically been used to create a shared identity and sense of cultural pride in the Chicano community, their work encourages the viewer to further cultivate an empowered community by interrogating the ways in which they may recreate/perpetuate patriarchal and colonial harm in their own lives and communities.
Notable exhibitions and projects include their solo exhibition at MSU Denver An Offering to the Cycle Breakers and their mural A Better Future is Possible for the SpaceTech Scholars program (created in partnership with Morgan DeVillier). Their work has been shown at Munich Jewelry Week 2024, The Blue Bench’s annual RISE Survivor Art Show, and Alto Gallery’s Everyone’s Everything. They have shown frequently with Chicano Humanities and Arts Council. Curatorial experiences include co-curation of CHAC's Chicano Legacy show with Tania Maldonado in August 2023 and assistant curation of Los Fantasmas On the Rise at Yolia Art Space with Morgan DeVillier.
Veronica Herrera
Veronica Herrera was born in San Antonio, Texas. She received her BFA in drawing, from the University of Texas at San Antonio. And she received her MFA, in painting and drawing, from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She has exhibited in notable spaces such as the Museo de las Americas, the Arvada Center for the Arts, CU Museum of Natural History, The Museum of Art Fort Collins, the Denver Art Museum, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, and Holter Museum of Art. She has been teaching at the University of Colorado at Denver for over 20 years.
Lizeth Hernandez
Lizeth Guadalupe (she/her/ella) is an artist and educator born and raised in Denver, CO. She is the middle child of three and the only daughter of immigrant parents from Chihuahua, Mexico. She studied Photography and Metalsmithing + Jewelry at Metropolitan State University (BFA).
As an artist, she employs various mediums and techniques to express concepts focusing on culture, physical health, and feminism. She aims to engage people from all walks of life, spark meaningful conversations, and promote awareness through art.
Javier Flores
Born April 27, 1978, in Denver Colorado to Mexican immigrants, Javier Flores is the eldest of 3 kids. Raised in a blue collar, middle to lower income household helped to instill a
strong work ethic, honesty, and integrity. At the age of nineteen Javier was shot in the lower back and subsequently paralyzed. Initially in shock and depression he became distant and suicidal for a time, thankfully saved by family, friends, the visual arts and martial arts.
Flores received his Bachelor of Fine Art from Metropolitan State University of Denver in 2008, and his Master of Fine Art from Texas A&M University Corpus Christi in 2017. Since
graduating, he worked as an affiliate until 2021 acquiring a full-time position at Front Range Community College. In this role he is the Art Lead for all 2D courses and the Gallery Director of the school.
As an artist, Flores chooses to associate with the idea of Lenguaje Vulgar, or vulgar language, a reference to cussing in Spanish. The connection of imagery to language is a symbolic
reference to the visual lexicon he continues to expand to explore the daily hindrance of his disability among other issues. The implication of swearing or cussing in accordance with his art is a therapeutic tool which allows Flores to express frustration yet persevere. As a visual artist, Flores pursues a variety of mediums to best translate the biographical narrative approach to image and form making. By re-contextualizing common symbols, the viewer is led to a larger dialogue in which they must access their own personal context in relation to the art. The reflective aspect of Javier’s work is an exploration into identity in the form of culture, ecology,
non-toxic masculinity, politics, temporality, loss and ultimately triumph.
Angel Perez
Board Chair
Executive Director of Colorado Circles for Change
MA, Ethnic Studies, CSU
BA, Multiculturalism & Social Justice, MSU
BOARD MEMBERS
Ulysses Diaz
Board Secretary
I completed my Masters in Social Work from The University of Illinois at Chicago Jane Addams School of Social Work. I have 13+ years working in higher education as a counselor. I am also an adherence rater on the MDMA clinical studies with Lykos Therapeutics, formerly known as MAPS PBC. I have been working with a private practice for a few years. Working with temicxoch, flowery dreams, as the indigenous Mexica called altered states of consciousness, is an honor and a privilege. My goal is to support the journey many individuals take with psychedelics from the mind to the heart, through the body.