Confusion

Gabino Méndez García

Confusión explores the tension between order and uncertainty. A carefully structured woven field gives way to a gathering of wandering, intersecting threads—each following its own path, yet becoming part of something larger. The work reflects those moments when life feels tangled and direction becomes unclear, reminding us that within confusion, there is still structure, movement, and connection.

Artist: Gabino Méndez García
Title: Confusion
Origin: San Pablo Villa de Mitla, Oaxaca, Mexico
Material: Natural cotton
Technique: Handwoven on traditional loom
Format: Five continuously woven works

The Artist: Gabino Méndez García

Contemporary Textile Artist | Mitla, Oaxaca

Gabino Méndez García comes from a multigenerational family of weavers in San Pablo Villa de Mitla, Oaxaca, where the family workshop, Artelar, has carried the tradition of weaving forward for generations. He learned the craft alongside his father, master weaver Emiliano Méndez Aguilar, absorbing the discipline, precision and deep knowledge of the loom that define the family's work.

His work was presented at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca in presencia, ausencia, an exhibition exploring memory, inheritance and the evolution of traditional weaving into a deeply personal contemporary practice.

After his father's passing in 2021, Gabino returned to the loom not only as a weaver, but as an artist. What began as a way to process loss became an exploration of his own creative language.

Gabino's work bridges tradition and contemporary art. Inspired by architecture, geometry, light and shadow, he creates textiles that feel almost like drawings or abstract landscapes. Lines move freely across the surface, intersecting and drifting rather than following predetermined patterns. The spaces between them—the pauses, openings and empty fields—are as important as the threads themselves.

Each piece is woven by hand on the loom, carrying both the knowledge passed down through generations and Gabino's own evolving artistic vision.

At found., we are drawn to work like Gabino's because it reminds us that craft is not static. Traditions remain alive when artists are given the freedom to carry them somewhere new.