Using a mix of old world and contemporary aesthetics and materials, celebrated piñata artist Roberto Benavidez will guide participants in creating their own Illuminated Postcards using goatskin parchment, glues, crepe papers, and inks. Students will be hand cutting and hole-punching crepe paper shapes to add to their postcards, and using ink pens and stamps to further ornament their artwork. Roberto will be providing the stamps he used in his commissioned piece, Illuminated Passport, currently on view as part of the Crossing the Line: The Passport Re-Imagined exhibition here at BIMA.

Guest Bio

Roberto Benavidez (b. 1973, Beeville, TX), known for his piñata-based artworks, lives and works in the Los Angeles, CA neighborhood of El Sereno. His sculptures have been featured in national, international, and online publications including ARTnews, Artsy, Atlas Obscura, The Guardian, hifructose.com, Hyperallergic, LUXE Interiors + Design, Politiken, The New York Times and This Is Colossal. Benavidez has shown in group and solo exhibitions, including at the AD&A Museum at UCSB, Craft In America, Mingei International Museum, Palo Alto Art Center, Self Help Graphics, Mesa Contemporary Art Museum, and Riverside Art Museum. LA Metro commissioned him to contribute to the “Through the Eyes of Artists” poster series (2019); his Bosch fruit fascinators are featured in the finale of The Interview with the Vampire series on AMC+; and his work was featured in the 2024 spring issue of American Craft Magazine. He has works in the collection of LA Metro and The Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, NM. He is featured in the “Play” episode of Craft In America (PBS) and is the subject of a documentary short directed by Tom Maroney titled Piñatas of Earthly Delights. Roberto was most recently profiled by The New York Times in their series, The Art of Craft.