Experience the creativity of our border community and cultures from around the world. EPMA’s calendar of events has something for all audiences and interests.
Unless otherwise noted, all EPMA programs are free. EPMA Members enjoy advanced access for select programs and discounts on ticketed events.
In this exhibition, Blast confronts the tension between desire, survival, and overindulgence in contemporary American culture. This body of work lives in the space between aspiration and disillusionment. Through exaggerated color, distorted symbols of wealth and entertainment, and imagery pulled from everyday street life, the artwork reflects how systems of consumption shape identity, behavior, self-worth and survival. Rooted in the lived realities of the borderlands, the exhibition speaks to the experiences of working-class communities and people often pushed outside of the margins of society.
Blast is a recipient of the Museums and Cultural Affairs Department (MCAD) Cultural Funding Program. As part of its mission to drive El Paso’s cultural vitality, MCAD provides support annually to local artists, area non-profit arts organizations and creative entrepreneurs through a competitive granting process in six categories that is designed for maximum transparency. The Artist Incubator Program (AIP) supports the creation of new work by El Paso artists in all disciplines.
Trancazos de la Vida Real is presented in partnership with MCAD’s Artist Incubator Program.
Support for the project is provided by the Mellon Foundation and the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation.
In this exhibition, Blast confronts the tension between desire, survival, and overindulgence in contemporary American culture. This body of work lives in the space between aspiration and disillusionment. Through exaggerated color, distorted symbols of wealth and entertainment, and imagery pulled from everyday street life, the artwork reflects how systems of consumption shape identity, behavior, self-worth and survival. Rooted in the lived realities of the borderlands, the exhibition speaks to the experiences of working-class communities and people often pushed outside of the margins of society.
Blast is a recipient of the Museums and Cultural Affairs Department (MCAD) Cultural Funding Program. As part of its mission to drive El Paso’s cultural vitality, MCAD provides support annually to local artists, area non-profit arts organizations and creative entrepreneurs through a competitive granting process in six categories that is designed for maximum transparency. The Artist Incubator Program (AIP) supports the creation of new work by El Paso artists in all disciplines.
Trancazos de la Vida Real is presented in partnership with MCAD’s Artist Incubator Program.
Support for the project is provided by the Mellon Foundation and the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation.
On the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence, this exhibition portrays recent national historical moments through the lens of Mexican American, Chicano, and other contemporary artists. Centering the borderlands within the broader narrative of the American dream, these selections from the Zoe Diaz Collection explore the cultural, social, and political forces that shape the nation’s identity. El Paso-rooted artists Adriana Corral, Gaspar Enriquez, and Luis A. Jiménez Jr. reflect on national identity through works that question democratic ideals and portray the livelihood and stark realities of binational communities. Additional artists, including Mel Chin, Rubio, Vincent Valdez, and Kathy Vargas, confront the grotesque, surreal, and unjust in depictions of power and its potentially distorting effect on truth and reality.
Through the artworks on loan from the Zoe Diaz Collection, this nation is rendered as a beautiful yet complex tapestry – an embattled landscape, a canvas for dreams, and a stage for the ongoing pursuit of representation, justice, and belonging.
Edward Hayes Jr., Director, El Paso Museum of Art
This exhibition is organized by the El Paso Museum of Art with Georgina & Joe Diaz and EPMA Education and Curatorial Associate Eun-Ji Jun.
Support for this exhibition is provided by the Texas Commission on the Arts, the Mellon Foundation, and the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation. Additional support provided by the City of El Paso’s Museums & Cultural Affairs Department.
In this exhibition, Blast confronts the tension between desire, survival, and overindulgence in contemporary American culture. This body of work lives in the space between aspiration and disillusionment. Through exaggerated color, distorted symbols of wealth and entertainment, and imagery pulled from everyday street life, the artwork reflects how systems of consumption shape identity, behavior, self-worth and survival. Rooted in the lived realities of the borderlands, the exhibition speaks to the experiences of working-class communities and people often pushed outside of the margins of society.
Blast is a recipient of the Museums and Cultural Affairs Department (MCAD) Cultural Funding Program. As part of its mission to drive El Paso’s cultural vitality, MCAD provides support annually to local artists, area non-profit arts organizations and creative entrepreneurs through a competitive granting process in six categories that is designed for maximum transparency. The Artist Incubator Program (AIP) supports the creation of new work by El Paso artists in all disciplines.
Trancazos de la Vida Real is presented in partnership with MCAD’s Artist Incubator Program.
Support for the project is provided by the Mellon Foundation and the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation.
On the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence, this exhibition portrays recent national historical moments through the lens of Mexican American, Chicano, and other contemporary artists. Centering the borderlands within the broader narrative of the American dream, these selections from the Zoe Diaz Collection explore the cultural, social, and political forces that shape the nation’s identity. El Paso-rooted artists Adriana Corral, Gaspar Enriquez, and Luis A. Jiménez Jr. reflect on national identity through works that question democratic ideals and portray the livelihood and stark realities of binational communities. Additional artists, including Mel Chin, Rubio, Vincent Valdez, and Kathy Vargas, confront the grotesque, surreal, and unjust in depictions of power and its potentially distorting effect on truth and reality.
Through the artworks on loan from the Zoe Diaz Collection, this nation is rendered as a beautiful yet complex tapestry – an embattled landscape, a canvas for dreams, and a stage for the ongoing pursuit of representation, justice, and belonging.
Edward Hayes Jr., Director, El Paso Museum of Art
This exhibition is organized by the El Paso Museum of Art with Georgina & Joe Diaz and EPMA Education and Curatorial Associate Eun-Ji Jun.
Support for this exhibition is provided by the Texas Commission on the Arts, the Mellon Foundation, and the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation. Additional support provided by the City of El Paso’s Museums & Cultural Affairs Department.
In composites-my eyes tear in the sun, Eric Santoscoy Mckillip explores the interconnected relationships between space, time, memory, and place through a body of work rooted in the U.S.–Mexico borderlands. Drawing from both personal experience and the wonder of the cosmos, the exhibition blends abstraction, vernacular design traditions, and celestial imagery to examine shifting perspectives on history, identity, and belonging. Through forms that exist between the familiar and the speculative, Santoscoy Mckillip reflects on the porous boundaries connecting culture, landscape, and lived experience.
Support for this exhibition is provided by the Mellon Foundation, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation. Additional support provided by the City of El Paso’s Museums & Cultural Affairs Department.
In this exhibition, Blast confronts the tension between desire, survival, and overindulgence in contemporary American culture. This body of work lives in the space between aspiration and disillusionment. Through exaggerated color, distorted symbols of wealth and entertainment, and imagery pulled from everyday street life, the artwork reflects how systems of consumption shape identity, behavior, self-worth and survival. Rooted in the lived realities of the borderlands, the exhibition speaks to the experiences of working-class communities and people often pushed outside of the margins of society.
Blast is a recipient of the Museums and Cultural Affairs Department (MCAD) Cultural Funding Program. As part of its mission to drive El Paso’s cultural vitality, MCAD provides support annually to local artists, area non-profit arts organizations and creative entrepreneurs through a competitive granting process in six categories that is designed for maximum transparency. The Artist Incubator Program (AIP) supports the creation of new work by El Paso artists in all disciplines.
Trancazos de la Vida Real is presented in partnership with MCAD’s Artist Incubator Program.
Support for the project is provided by the Mellon Foundation and the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation.
On the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence, this exhibition portrays recent national historical moments through the lens of Mexican American, Chicano, and other contemporary artists. Centering the borderlands within the broader narrative of the American dream, these selections from the Zoe Diaz Collection explore the cultural, social, and political forces that shape the nation’s identity. El Paso-rooted artists Adriana Corral, Gaspar Enriquez, and Luis A. Jiménez Jr. reflect on national identity through works that question democratic ideals and portray the livelihood and stark realities of binational communities. Additional artists, including Mel Chin, Rubio, Vincent Valdez, and Kathy Vargas, confront the grotesque, surreal, and unjust in depictions of power and its potentially distorting effect on truth and reality.
Through the artworks on loan from the Zoe Diaz Collection, this nation is rendered as a beautiful yet complex tapestry – an embattled landscape, a canvas for dreams, and a stage for the ongoing pursuit of representation, justice, and belonging.
Edward Hayes Jr., Director, El Paso Museum of Art
This exhibition is organized by the El Paso Museum of Art with Georgina & Joe Diaz and EPMA Education and Curatorial Associate Eun-Ji Jun.
Support for this exhibition is provided by the Texas Commission on the Arts, the Mellon Foundation, and the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation. Additional support provided by the City of El Paso’s Museums & Cultural Affairs Department.
In composites-my eyes tear in the sun, Eric Santoscoy Mckillip explores the interconnected relationships between space, time, memory, and place through a body of work rooted in the U.S.–Mexico borderlands. Drawing from both personal experience and the wonder of the cosmos, the exhibition blends abstraction, vernacular design traditions, and celestial imagery to examine shifting perspectives on history, identity, and belonging. Through forms that exist between the familiar and the speculative, Santoscoy Mckillip reflects on the porous boundaries connecting culture, landscape, and lived experience.
Support for this exhibition is provided by the Mellon Foundation, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation. Additional support provided by the City of El Paso’s Museums & Cultural Affairs Department.
This solo presentation by multimedia artist Connie Arismendi honors the lives of migrants who died while crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in search of better opportunities for themselves and their families. For decades, thousands of migrants–many of whom have never been identified–have perished from extreme heat, drowning, or violence at the hands of transnational criminal organizations that exploit their desperation.
Created more than two decades apart, Arismendi’s installations, Victoria and San Antonio, commemorate the victims who died after being abandoned inside tractor-trailers in 2003 and 2022, respectively. As news of these tragedies spread across the nation, media coverage often overlooked the names, identities, and lived experiences of those who lost their lives. Through these elegies, Arismendi creates space for reflection, where names of the victims resurface, not to be forgotten from public memory.
The 2026 Border Biennial / Bienal Fronteriza features 31 artists and two collectives representing Arizona, Chihuahua, New Mexico, and Texas. The exhibition is organized by the City of El Paso Museums and Cultural Affairs Department in collaboration with the Secretaría de Cultura de México and the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL).
Inaugurated in 2008, the Border Biennial celebrates contemporary art from the U.S./Mexico border. The 2026 Biennial theme, Imagining the Border, invites visitors to engage with, experience, and challenge the narratives commonly associated with the borderlands. This edition draws from artists living within 300 miles of the El Paso/Juárez border and brings together over 80 artworks across two institutions less than ten miles apart: the Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez and the El Paso Museum of Art.
The 2026 iteration is curated by Dr. Adriana Miramontes Olivas and Alejandro Morales.
“Through subject matter and artistic experimentation, the selected artists propose new ways of thinking and seeing the borderlands.” - Adriana Miramontes Olivas, PhD
“The selection process became an exchange of perspectives on the border that opened readings neither of us had reached alone, as well as a valuable opportunity to encounter new voices and engage with proposals that address the contemporary concerns and questions surrounding the desert borderlands across political, affective, communal, and personal registers.” - Alejandro Morales
The 2026 Border Biennial / Bienal Fronteriza 2026 will open on September 4, 2026, at the El Paso Museum of Art and September 5, 2026, at the Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez (MACJ).
The exhibition is organized by the City of El Paso Museums & Cultural Affairs Department and the Secretaría de Cultura de México & the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL).
Support for the 2026 Border Biennial is provided by the Mellon Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Texas Commission on the Arts, the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation, and the City of El Paso Museums and Cultural Affairs Department.
2026 Border Biennial Selections
The El Paso Museum of Art invites members of the museum and the public to the opening of a new large-scale installation Dislocations by artist Julia Barello, in collaboration with Cully + Leslie Studio, in the Patricia and Jonathan Rogers Grand Lobby.
Dislocations is made from thousands of discarded, recycled, and dyed medical imaging films, handmade steel pins, and oil paintings by Craig Cully. Barello and Cully bring these elements together to reflect on a contemporary condition of fragility and impermanence. It treats lived experience as a layered text – momentarily coherent yet constantly shifting – giving form to forces that were once peripheral but now defined the center of human experience.
Julia Barello is professor emerita at New Mexico State University, in Las Cruces, where she lives and works. Her work has been exhibited widely, including at the Rubin Center for the Visual Arts at UTEP and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York.
Support for this installation is provided by the Mellon Foundation. Additional support is provided by the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation and the City of El Paso Museums and Cultural Affairs Department.
In this exhibition, Blast confronts the tension between desire, survival, and overindulgence in contemporary American culture. This body of work lives in the space between aspiration and disillusionment. Through exaggerated color, distorted symbols of wealth and entertainment, and imagery pulled from everyday street life, the artwork reflects how systems of consumption shape identity, behavior, self-worth and survival. Rooted in the lived realities of the borderlands, the exhibition speaks to the experiences of working-class communities and people often pushed outside of the margins of society.
Blast is a recipient of the Museums and Cultural Affairs Department (MCAD) Cultural Funding Program. As part of its mission to drive El Paso’s cultural vitality, MCAD provides support annually to local artists, area non-profit arts organizations and creative entrepreneurs through a competitive granting process in six categories that is designed for maximum transparency. The Artist Incubator Program (AIP) supports the creation of new work by El Paso artists in all disciplines.
Trancazos de la Vida Real is presented in partnership with MCAD’s Artist Incubator Program.
Support for the project is provided by the Mellon Foundation and the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation.
On the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence, this exhibition portrays recent national historical moments through the lens of Mexican American, Chicano, and other contemporary artists. Centering the borderlands within the broader narrative of the American dream, these selections from the Zoe Diaz Collection explore the cultural, social, and political forces that shape the nation’s identity. El Paso-rooted artists Adriana Corral, Gaspar Enriquez, and Luis A. Jiménez Jr. reflect on national identity through works that question democratic ideals and portray the livelihood and stark realities of binational communities. Additional artists, including Mel Chin, Rubio, Vincent Valdez, and Kathy Vargas, confront the grotesque, surreal, and unjust in depictions of power and its potentially distorting effect on truth and reality.
Through the artworks on loan from the Zoe Diaz Collection, this nation is rendered as a beautiful yet complex tapestry – an embattled landscape, a canvas for dreams, and a stage for the ongoing pursuit of representation, justice, and belonging.
Edward Hayes Jr., Director, El Paso Museum of Art
This exhibition is organized by the El Paso Museum of Art with Georgina & Joe Diaz and EPMA Education and Curatorial Associate Eun-Ji Jun.
Support for this exhibition is provided by the Texas Commission on the Arts, the Mellon Foundation, and the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation. Additional support provided by the City of El Paso’s Museums & Cultural Affairs Department.
In composites-my eyes tear in the sun, Eric Santoscoy Mckillip explores the interconnected relationships between space, time, memory, and place through a body of work rooted in the U.S.–Mexico borderlands. Drawing from both personal experience and the wonder of the cosmos, the exhibition blends abstraction, vernacular design traditions, and celestial imagery to examine shifting perspectives on history, identity, and belonging. Through forms that exist between the familiar and the speculative, Santoscoy Mckillip reflects on the porous boundaries connecting culture, landscape, and lived experience.
Support for this exhibition is provided by the Mellon Foundation, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation. Additional support provided by the City of El Paso’s Museums & Cultural Affairs Department.
This solo presentation by multimedia artist Connie Arismendi honors the lives of migrants who died while crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in search of better opportunities for themselves and their families. For decades, thousands of migrants–many of whom have never been identified–have perished from extreme heat, drowning, or violence at the hands of transnational criminal organizations that exploit their desperation.
Created more than two decades apart, Arismendi’s installations, Victoria and San Antonio, commemorate the victims who died after being abandoned inside tractor-trailers in 2003 and 2022, respectively. As news of these tragedies spread across the nation, media coverage often overlooked the names, identities, and lived experiences of those who lost their lives. Through these elegies, Arismendi creates space for reflection, where names of the victims resurface, not to be forgotten from public memory.
The 2026 Border Biennial / Bienal Fronteriza features 31 artists and two collectives representing Arizona, Chihuahua, New Mexico, and Texas. The exhibition is organized by the City of El Paso Museums and Cultural Affairs Department in collaboration with the Secretaría de Cultura de México and the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL).
Inaugurated in 2008, the Border Biennial celebrates contemporary art from the U.S./Mexico border. The 2026 Biennial theme, Imagining the Border, invites visitors to engage with, experience, and challenge the narratives commonly associated with the borderlands. This edition draws from artists living within 300 miles of the El Paso/Juárez border and brings together over 80 artworks across two institutions less than ten miles apart: the Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez and the El Paso Museum of Art.
The 2026 iteration is curated by Dr. Adriana Miramontes Olivas and Alejandro Morales.
“Through subject matter and artistic experimentation, the selected artists propose new ways of thinking and seeing the borderlands.” - Adriana Miramontes Olivas, PhD
“The selection process became an exchange of perspectives on the border that opened readings neither of us had reached alone, as well as a valuable opportunity to encounter new voices and engage with proposals that address the contemporary concerns and questions surrounding the desert borderlands across political, affective, communal, and personal registers.” - Alejandro Morales
The 2026 Border Biennial / Bienal Fronteriza 2026 will open on September 4, 2026, at the El Paso Museum of Art and September 5, 2026, at the Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez (MACJ).
The exhibition is organized by the City of El Paso Museums & Cultural Affairs Department and the Secretaría de Cultura de México & the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL).
Support for the 2026 Border Biennial is provided by the Mellon Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Texas Commission on the Arts, the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation, and the City of El Paso Museums and Cultural Affairs Department.
2026 Border Biennial Selections
The El Paso Museum of Art invites members of the museum and the public to the opening of a new large-scale installation Dislocations by artist Julia Barello, in collaboration with Cully + Leslie Studio, in the Patricia and Jonathan Rogers Grand Lobby.
Dislocations is made from thousands of discarded, recycled, and dyed medical imaging films, handmade steel pins, and oil paintings by Craig Cully. Barello and Cully bring these elements together to reflect on a contemporary condition of fragility and impermanence. It treats lived experience as a layered text – momentarily coherent yet constantly shifting – giving form to forces that were once peripheral but now defined the center of human experience.
Julia Barello is professor emerita at New Mexico State University, in Las Cruces, where she lives and works. Her work has been exhibited widely, including at the Rubin Center for the Visual Arts at UTEP and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York.
Support for this installation is provided by the Mellon Foundation. Additional support is provided by the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation and the City of El Paso Museums and Cultural Affairs Department.
Pottery wheel workshop Discover the fundamentals of pottery wheel throwing in this focused, hands-on six-session course taught by an experienced local ceramic artist. Designed specifically for beginners and students who want to dedicate their time exclusively to wheel throwing, this small intimate class provides plenty of practice and personalized instruction in a supportive studio environment. You’ll learn the basics of preparing clay, centering, opening, pulling walls, shaping, trimming, and finishing your pieces on the pottery wheel. With six sessions to build your skills, you’ll have the opportunity to gain confidence, develop your technique, and create functional and decorative pieces of your own. Classes are held Sundays from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM. All materials and firings are included, so you can focus entirely on learning and making. No previous pottery experience is required—just come ready to get your hands dirty and have fun with clay! Perfect for: Beginners, returning potters, or anyone looking for a class dedicated solely to wheel throwing.
Explore ceramics in a welcoming, creative studio environment at the El Paso Museum of Art. Guided by local artist Fernando Armendáriz, these open studio classes are designed for all skill levels—from beginners discovering ceramics for the first time to established artists looking for dedicated studio space and kiln access. Participants can develop their skills, work independently, and connect with a community of fellow ceramic artists.
All materials and studio services, including kiln firings, are included in the cost of tuition.
Join local artist Angie Michelle Barraza for a six-session acrylic painting class at the El Paso Museum of Art. Open to artists of all experience levels, this class offers hands-on instruction in acrylic painting techniques while encouraging creativity and individual expression. All materials and services are included, so students can focus on learning, creating, and enjoying the process.
In this exhibition, Blast confronts the tension between desire, survival, and overindulgence in contemporary American culture. This body of work lives in the space between aspiration and disillusionment. Through exaggerated color, distorted symbols of wealth and entertainment, and imagery pulled from everyday street life, the artwork reflects how systems of consumption shape identity, behavior, self-worth and survival. Rooted in the lived realities of the borderlands, the exhibition speaks to the experiences of working-class communities and people often pushed outside of the margins of society.
Blast is a recipient of the Museums and Cultural Affairs Department (MCAD) Cultural Funding Program. As part of its mission to drive El Paso’s cultural vitality, MCAD provides support annually to local artists, area non-profit arts organizations and creative entrepreneurs through a competitive granting process in six categories that is designed for maximum transparency. The Artist Incubator Program (AIP) supports the creation of new work by El Paso artists in all disciplines.
Trancazos de la Vida Real is presented in partnership with MCAD’s Artist Incubator Program.
Support for the project is provided by the Mellon Foundation and the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation.
On the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence, this exhibition portrays recent national historical moments through the lens of Mexican American, Chicano, and other contemporary artists. Centering the borderlands within the broader narrative of the American dream, these selections from the Zoe Diaz Collection explore the cultural, social, and political forces that shape the nation’s identity. El Paso-rooted artists Adriana Corral, Gaspar Enriquez, and Luis A. Jiménez Jr. reflect on national identity through works that question democratic ideals and portray the livelihood and stark realities of binational communities. Additional artists, including Mel Chin, Rubio, Vincent Valdez, and Kathy Vargas, confront the grotesque, surreal, and unjust in depictions of power and its potentially distorting effect on truth and reality.
Through the artworks on loan from the Zoe Diaz Collection, this nation is rendered as a beautiful yet complex tapestry – an embattled landscape, a canvas for dreams, and a stage for the ongoing pursuit of representation, justice, and belonging.
Edward Hayes Jr., Director, El Paso Museum of Art
This exhibition is organized by the El Paso Museum of Art with Georgina & Joe Diaz and EPMA Education and Curatorial Associate Eun-Ji Jun.
Support for this exhibition is provided by the Texas Commission on the Arts, the Mellon Foundation, and the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation. Additional support provided by the City of El Paso’s Museums & Cultural Affairs Department.
In composites-my eyes tear in the sun, Eric Santoscoy Mckillip explores the interconnected relationships between space, time, memory, and place through a body of work rooted in the U.S.–Mexico borderlands. Drawing from both personal experience and the wonder of the cosmos, the exhibition blends abstraction, vernacular design traditions, and celestial imagery to examine shifting perspectives on history, identity, and belonging. Through forms that exist between the familiar and the speculative, Santoscoy Mckillip reflects on the porous boundaries connecting culture, landscape, and lived experience.
Support for this exhibition is provided by the Mellon Foundation, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation. Additional support provided by the City of El Paso’s Museums & Cultural Affairs Department.
This solo presentation by multimedia artist Connie Arismendi honors the lives of migrants who died while crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in search of better opportunities for themselves and their families. For decades, thousands of migrants–many of whom have never been identified–have perished from extreme heat, drowning, or violence at the hands of transnational criminal organizations that exploit their desperation.
Created more than two decades apart, Arismendi’s installations, Victoria and San Antonio, commemorate the victims who died after being abandoned inside tractor-trailers in 2003 and 2022, respectively. As news of these tragedies spread across the nation, media coverage often overlooked the names, identities, and lived experiences of those who lost their lives. Through these elegies, Arismendi creates space for reflection, where names of the victims resurface, not to be forgotten from public memory.
The 2026 Border Biennial / Bienal Fronteriza features 31 artists and two collectives representing Arizona, Chihuahua, New Mexico, and Texas. The exhibition is organized by the City of El Paso Museums and Cultural Affairs Department in collaboration with the Secretaría de Cultura de México and the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL).
Inaugurated in 2008, the Border Biennial celebrates contemporary art from the U.S./Mexico border. The 2026 Biennial theme, Imagining the Border, invites visitors to engage with, experience, and challenge the narratives commonly associated with the borderlands. This edition draws from artists living within 300 miles of the El Paso/Juárez border and brings together over 80 artworks across two institutions less than ten miles apart: the Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez and the El Paso Museum of Art.
The 2026 iteration is curated by Dr. Adriana Miramontes Olivas and Alejandro Morales.
“Through subject matter and artistic experimentation, the selected artists propose new ways of thinking and seeing the borderlands.” - Adriana Miramontes Olivas, PhD
“The selection process became an exchange of perspectives on the border that opened readings neither of us had reached alone, as well as a valuable opportunity to encounter new voices and engage with proposals that address the contemporary concerns and questions surrounding the desert borderlands across political, affective, communal, and personal registers.” - Alejandro Morales
The 2026 Border Biennial / Bienal Fronteriza 2026 will open on September 4, 2026, at the El Paso Museum of Art and September 5, 2026, at the Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez (MACJ).
The exhibition is organized by the City of El Paso Museums & Cultural Affairs Department and the Secretaría de Cultura de México & the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL).
Support for the 2026 Border Biennial is provided by the Mellon Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Texas Commission on the Arts, the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation, and the City of El Paso Museums and Cultural Affairs Department.
2026 Border Biennial Selections
The El Paso Museum of Art invites members of the museum and the public to the opening of a new large-scale installation Dislocations by artist Julia Barello, in collaboration with Cully + Leslie Studio, in the Patricia and Jonathan Rogers Grand Lobby.
Dislocations is made from thousands of discarded, recycled, and dyed medical imaging films, handmade steel pins, and oil paintings by Craig Cully. Barello and Cully bring these elements together to reflect on a contemporary condition of fragility and impermanence. It treats lived experience as a layered text – momentarily coherent yet constantly shifting – giving form to forces that were once peripheral but now defined the center of human experience.
Julia Barello is professor emerita at New Mexico State University, in Las Cruces, where she lives and works. Her work has been exhibited widely, including at the Rubin Center for the Visual Arts at UTEP and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York.
Support for this installation is provided by the Mellon Foundation. Additional support is provided by the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation and the City of El Paso Museums and Cultural Affairs Department.
Pottery wheel workshop Discover the fundamentals of pottery wheel throwing in this focused, hands-on six-session course taught by an experienced local ceramic artist. Designed specifically for beginners and students who want to dedicate their time exclusively to wheel throwing, this small intimate class provides plenty of practice and personalized instruction in a supportive studio environment. You’ll learn the basics of preparing clay, centering, opening, pulling walls, shaping, trimming, and finishing your pieces on the pottery wheel. With six sessions to build your skills, you’ll have the opportunity to gain confidence, develop your technique, and create functional and decorative pieces of your own. Classes are held Sundays from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM. All materials and firings are included, so you can focus entirely on learning and making. No previous pottery experience is required—just come ready to get your hands dirty and have fun with clay! Perfect for: Beginners, returning potters, or anyone looking for a class dedicated solely to wheel throwing.
Explore ceramics in a welcoming, creative studio environment at the El Paso Museum of Art. Guided by local artist Fernando Armendáriz, these open studio classes are designed for all skill levels—from beginners discovering ceramics for the first time to established artists looking for dedicated studio space and kiln access. Participants can develop their skills, work independently, and connect with a community of fellow ceramic artists.
All materials and studio services, including kiln firings, are included in the cost of tuition.
Join local artist Angie Michelle Barraza for a six-session acrylic painting class at the El Paso Museum of Art. Open to artists of all experience levels, this class offers hands-on instruction in acrylic painting techniques while encouraging creativity and individual expression. All materials and services are included, so students can focus on learning, creating, and enjoying the process.
Thank you for your interest in EPMA Older Adults Ceramics at the El Paso Museum of Art, our free, innovative art school program designed for individuals 65yrs and older. Taught in a wonderful community studio setting for all skill levels. Beginners looking to start a new hobby or established Artists looking to sharpen up their skills. Students will learn from talented teaching artist, Efren Villalobos. Students will have access to EPMA’s ceramic studio and learn at their own pace on hand building, wheel throwing on the pottery wheel. All materials and services are included with no cost.
Thank you for your interest in EPMA Older Adults Painting, our free, innovative art school program designed for individuals 65yrs and older. Taught in a wonderful community studio setting for all skill levels. Beginners looking to start a new hobby or established Artists looking to sharpen up their skills. Students will have access to EPMA’s Art studio and EPMA’s collection to study and learn from, with a talented Teaching Artist to help guide students at their own work pace at no cost.
Join the El Paso Museum of Art for a special presentation by the Tom Lea Institute exploring the life and work of El Paso artist Tom Lea and his connection to Mexican bullfighting during its golden age in the 1940s.
Matthew Butler, Professor of the History of Mexico at the University of Texas at Austin, will discuss Lea’s experiences in Mexico, including his travels to bull-breeding ranches and his fascination with the country’s toros bravos (fighting bulls). These experiences later inspired Lea’s acclaimed 1949 novel, The Brave Bulls.
The presentation will also explore how Lea’s travels and perspectives on Mexican culture influenced his artistic and literary work, as well as his understanding of Texas identity and its relationship to Mexico.
Discover a fascinating chapter in Tom Lea’s life and the cultural connections that shaped his work.
Registration available at: https://www.tomlea.com/events/celebration
In a world that often emphasizes independence and self-reliance, it can be easy to overlook the importance of human connection. This session invites participants to reflect on the role of community, meaningful relationships, and emotional support in our lives.
Through guided reflection, participants will explore the value of belonging, the courage it takes to ask for help, and the ways we can support one another through life’s challenges.
The experience will conclude with an immersive sound bath, offering a peaceful opportunity to rest, reconnect, and reflect on the relationships that enrich our lives.
Presented in collaboration with Live Active El Paso. Support provided by Art Bridges.
Take a musical break in the middle of your day with Bach’s Lunch at the El Paso Museum of Art! Presented in collaboration with El Paso Pro-Musica and hosted by renowned cellist Zuill Bailey, this lunchtime concert series invites visitors to enjoy live musical performances in the museum’s auditorium.
Whether you’re a longtime classical music enthusiast or simply looking to experience something new, Bach’s Lunch offers an opportunity to enjoy music in a welcoming museum setting.
Please note: Food and beverages are not provided or permitted in the auditorium.
Gratitude is more than simply saying thank you. It is the practice of recognizing the meaningful moments, relationships, and experiences that shape our lives, even during times of uncertainty or difficulty.
This session invites participants to explore gratitude while acknowledging that life’s challenges and moments of appreciation can coexist. Through guided reflection, participants will consider how recognizing small, everyday moments can foster a greater sense of awareness, connection, and appreciation for the world around them.
The experience will conclude with a restorative sound bath, offering a peaceful opportunity to relax, reflect, and reconnect with the present moment.
Presented in collaboration with Live Active El Paso. Support provided by Art Bridges.
In this exhibition, Blast confronts the tension between desire, survival, and overindulgence in contemporary American culture. This body of work lives in the space between aspiration and disillusionment. Through exaggerated color, distorted symbols of wealth and entertainment, and imagery pulled from everyday street life, the artwork reflects how systems of consumption shape identity, behavior, self-worth and survival. Rooted in the lived realities of the borderlands, the exhibition speaks to the experiences of working-class communities and people often pushed outside of the margins of society.
Blast is a recipient of the Museums and Cultural Affairs Department (MCAD) Cultural Funding Program. As part of its mission to drive El Paso’s cultural vitality, MCAD provides support annually to local artists, area non-profit arts organizations and creative entrepreneurs through a competitive granting process in six categories that is designed for maximum transparency. The Artist Incubator Program (AIP) supports the creation of new work by El Paso artists in all disciplines.
Trancazos de la Vida Real is presented in partnership with MCAD’s Artist Incubator Program.
Support for the project is provided by the Mellon Foundation and the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation.
On the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence, this exhibition portrays recent national historical moments through the lens of Mexican American, Chicano, and other contemporary artists. Centering the borderlands within the broader narrative of the American dream, these selections from the Zoe Diaz Collection explore the cultural, social, and political forces that shape the nation’s identity. El Paso-rooted artists Adriana Corral, Gaspar Enriquez, and Luis A. Jiménez Jr. reflect on national identity through works that question democratic ideals and portray the livelihood and stark realities of binational communities. Additional artists, including Mel Chin, Rubio, Vincent Valdez, and Kathy Vargas, confront the grotesque, surreal, and unjust in depictions of power and its potentially distorting effect on truth and reality.
Through the artworks on loan from the Zoe Diaz Collection, this nation is rendered as a beautiful yet complex tapestry – an embattled landscape, a canvas for dreams, and a stage for the ongoing pursuit of representation, justice, and belonging.
Edward Hayes Jr., Director, El Paso Museum of Art
This exhibition is organized by the El Paso Museum of Art with Georgina & Joe Diaz and EPMA Education and Curatorial Associate Eun-Ji Jun.
Support for this exhibition is provided by the Texas Commission on the Arts, the Mellon Foundation, and the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation. Additional support provided by the City of El Paso’s Museums & Cultural Affairs Department.
In composites-my eyes tear in the sun, Eric Santoscoy Mckillip explores the interconnected relationships between space, time, memory, and place through a body of work rooted in the U.S.–Mexico borderlands. Drawing from both personal experience and the wonder of the cosmos, the exhibition blends abstraction, vernacular design traditions, and celestial imagery to examine shifting perspectives on history, identity, and belonging. Through forms that exist between the familiar and the speculative, Santoscoy Mckillip reflects on the porous boundaries connecting culture, landscape, and lived experience.
Support for this exhibition is provided by the Mellon Foundation, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation. Additional support provided by the City of El Paso’s Museums & Cultural Affairs Department.
This solo presentation by multimedia artist Connie Arismendi honors the lives of migrants who died while crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in search of better opportunities for themselves and their families. For decades, thousands of migrants–many of whom have never been identified–have perished from extreme heat, drowning, or violence at the hands of transnational criminal organizations that exploit their desperation.
Created more than two decades apart, Arismendi’s installations, Victoria and San Antonio, commemorate the victims who died after being abandoned inside tractor-trailers in 2003 and 2022, respectively. As news of these tragedies spread across the nation, media coverage often overlooked the names, identities, and lived experiences of those who lost their lives. Through these elegies, Arismendi creates space for reflection, where names of the victims resurface, not to be forgotten from public memory.
The 2026 Border Biennial / Bienal Fronteriza features 31 artists and two collectives representing Arizona, Chihuahua, New Mexico, and Texas. The exhibition is organized by the City of El Paso Museums and Cultural Affairs Department in collaboration with the Secretaría de Cultura de México and the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL).
Inaugurated in 2008, the Border Biennial celebrates contemporary art from the U.S./Mexico border. The 2026 Biennial theme, Imagining the Border, invites visitors to engage with, experience, and challenge the narratives commonly associated with the borderlands. This edition draws from artists living within 300 miles of the El Paso/Juárez border and brings together over 80 artworks across two institutions less than ten miles apart: the Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez and the El Paso Museum of Art.
The 2026 iteration is curated by Dr. Adriana Miramontes Olivas and Alejandro Morales.
“Through subject matter and artistic experimentation, the selected artists propose new ways of thinking and seeing the borderlands.” - Adriana Miramontes Olivas, PhD
“The selection process became an exchange of perspectives on the border that opened readings neither of us had reached alone, as well as a valuable opportunity to encounter new voices and engage with proposals that address the contemporary concerns and questions surrounding the desert borderlands across political, affective, communal, and personal registers.” - Alejandro Morales
The 2026 Border Biennial / Bienal Fronteriza 2026 will open on September 4, 2026, at the El Paso Museum of Art and September 5, 2026, at the Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez (MACJ).
The exhibition is organized by the City of El Paso Museums & Cultural Affairs Department and the Secretaría de Cultura de México & the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL).
Support for the 2026 Border Biennial is provided by the Mellon Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Texas Commission on the Arts, the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation, and the City of El Paso Museums and Cultural Affairs Department.
2026 Border Biennial Selections
The El Paso Museum of Art invites members of the museum and the public to the opening of a new large-scale installation Dislocations by artist Julia Barello, in collaboration with Cully + Leslie Studio, in the Patricia and Jonathan Rogers Grand Lobby.
Dislocations is made from thousands of discarded, recycled, and dyed medical imaging films, handmade steel pins, and oil paintings by Craig Cully. Barello and Cully bring these elements together to reflect on a contemporary condition of fragility and impermanence. It treats lived experience as a layered text – momentarily coherent yet constantly shifting – giving form to forces that were once peripheral but now defined the center of human experience.
Julia Barello is professor emerita at New Mexico State University, in Las Cruces, where she lives and works. Her work has been exhibited widely, including at the Rubin Center for the Visual Arts at UTEP and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York.
Support for this installation is provided by the Mellon Foundation. Additional support is provided by the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation and the City of El Paso Museums and Cultural Affairs Department.
Explore ceramics in a welcoming, creative studio environment at the El Paso Museum of Art. Guided by local artist Fernando Armendáriz, these open studio classes are designed for all skill levels—from beginners discovering ceramics for the first time to established artists looking for dedicated studio space and kiln access. Participants can develop their skills, work independently, and connect with a community of fellow ceramic artists.
All materials and studio services, including kiln firings, are included in the cost of tuition.
Join local artist Angie Michelle Barraza for a six-session acrylic painting class at the El Paso Museum of Art. Open to artists of all experience levels, this class offers hands-on instruction in acrylic painting techniques while encouraging creativity and individual expression. All materials and services are included, so students can focus on learning, creating, and enjoying the process.
Thank you for your interest in EPMA Older Adults Ceramics at the El Paso Museum of Art, our free, innovative art school program designed for individuals 65yrs and older. Taught in a wonderful community studio setting for all skill levels. Beginners looking to start a new hobby or established Artists looking to sharpen up their skills. Students will learn from talented teaching artist, Efren Villalobos. Students will have access to EPMA’s ceramic studio and learn at their own pace on hand building, wheel throwing on the pottery wheel. All materials and services are included with no cost.
Thank you for your interest in EPMA Older Adults Painting, our free, innovative art school program designed for individuals 65yrs and older. Taught in a wonderful community studio setting for all skill levels. Beginners looking to start a new hobby or established Artists looking to sharpen up their skills. Students will have access to EPMA’s Art studio and EPMA’s collection to study and learn from, with a talented Teaching Artist to help guide students at their own work pace at no cost.
