Tanya Aguiñiga: Coyolxauhqui Imperative
June 13, 2026 – July 25, 2026
Volume Gallery, 1709 W. Chicago Ave. Second Floor, Chicago, IL 60622
Volume Gallery announces Coyolxauhqui Imperative, a solo exhibition by Tanya Aguiñiga, opening Saturday, June 13, 2026, from 3 to 6 p.m in gallery two. Tanya Aguiñiga is a Los Angeles-based artist and activist raised in Tijuana, Mexico. Her ongoing investigations of identity and belonging made with meaningful materials are both deeply personal and an expression of her community. In this new body of work, Aguiñiga strategically removes threads from the warp and weft of delicate gauze to create images — a subtractive process like reverse embroidery. Mounted over black velvet, sections of open weave catch light and shadow to outline animals long held sacred across Mesoamerica: opossums, coyotes, vultures, snakes, and bats. These creatures occupied central roles in Indigenous life and cosmology, and some of their Nahuatl names, tlacuatzin and coyotl , persist in daily language as quiet evidence of their cultural significance. Today, they are largely vilified as pests or nuisances, despite their vital ecological roles.