Esteban Cabeza de Baca (CRF 2023) opened his first solo museum exhibition on the West Coast on February 22nd, 2025 titled Memories of the Future. It is on view at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art (SLOMA) through June 21st, 2025.
The exhibition features eleven paintings made between 2015 and 2024, each one exploring themes of belonging, immigration, Indigenous identity, activism, and celebration. Born into a family of labor activists in San Ysidro, California, Cabeza de Baca spent much of his childhood traveling between California and New Mexico. His paintings reflect that movement—across place, time, and memory—often rendered on square canvases that feel like snapshots from dreams or recollections.
In March to Sacramento, he commemorates the 1966 protest march by Delano grape workers, a pivotal moment in the formation of the United Farm Workers. Works like Teatro Campesino and Suenos continue this conversation around agricultural labor and human rights. Throughout the exhibition, recurring motifs—such as Mexican cloth dolls gifted by the artist’s mother—serve as touchstones to his personal and cultural history, connecting past to present, memory to future.
Paintings like Medicina Lunar and Hybrids evoke ancestral landscapes as active, sentient spaces—reminding viewers of what is at risk of being forgotten. As SLOMA Executive Director Leann Standish puts it, the exhibition “challenges us to see beyond the present moment and engage with the deep, interconnected stories that shape our world.”
Learn more and explore images from the show here.