Nahum B. Zenil is a Mexican artist who often uses his own self-portrait as the principal model for a cultural critical interpretation of Mexico, especially concerning homosexuality and mestization.
In 1959, he enrolled at the Escuela Nacional de Maestros (National Teachers' School) in Mexico City, from which he graduated in 1964.
He later entered the Escuela Nacional de Pintura y Escultura (known as La Esmeralda) in Mexico City in 1968.
[1] His art is often compared to that of Frida Kahlo,[2] in which the self becomes the principal object of their paintings letting the viewer discover the artists as individuals as well as the broader social and cultural contexts in which they lived through the medium of self-portraiture.
The house, when displayed in Zenil's work, is very modest, showing only a small living room, one bedroom, and one bathroom.
However, in 1959, Zenil enrolled at the Escuela Nacional de Maestros in Mexico City,where he study art, including; drawing, watercolor, collage, and montage.
[1] After graduating in 1964, Zenil stayed in Mexico City, where he taught classes on many subjects from drawing to sports.
Shortly before Zenil began his full-time career as an artist, he had a solo exhibition in 1980 at the Casa de Arte CREA, in Mexico City.
[1] He often uses his image to relieve pressures he felt as a child growing up homosexual in a small town and to comment on contemporary Mexican society.
According to the website glbtq archive, they state that "In a number of ways, Zenil has looked to the art of Frida Kahlo, with its strong dose of self-examination and criticism, as a beacon of inspiration.
[3] Zenil's art allowed him to purge himself of the pressures he felt growing up gay, in a small town as a child.
[3] The pressures continued to follow him into his life in Mexico city, and as a teacher until he quit, to pursue his art full-time.
[3] Many of his works look at a variety of themes and relationships among race, religion, Mexican history, cultural designation, colonialism, male subjectivity and homosexuality.