Root Division Presents:
Machismosa

Curated by Aleo Landeta

Root Division is proud to present a new, radical, and boundary-pushing exhibition, Machismosa curated by Aleo Landeta. 

In the tradition of chisme as lore, Machismosa examines how machismo is learned, whispered, and passed down. This exhibition dismantles it through the same radical storytelling that built it, bringing together ten Latine artists whose multimedia practices unravel machismo’s rigidity and reimagine it as fluid, intimate, and communal. Rather than treating machismo as an inescapable mold, these artists deconstruct and reclaim it into something livable. Working across textile, ceramics, painting, and sculpture, they center the body, domesticity, and ancestral memory as sites of resistance, where kitchen-table whispers become revolution. The opening reception will be animated by live performances from drag royalty Soy Papi Churo and Xochitl, bringing Machismosa’s themes off the walls and into the room.

The exhibition features Alexander Hernandez and Daniel Arthur Mendoza, whose textile and soft sculpture practices excavate queer joy and communal intimacy from discarded and secondhand materials; Dani Lopez and Angela Zamora, whose fiber works and corn husk sculptures root Latine femme identity and macho complexity in the textures of cultural inheritance; and Angel A. Anjos and Erica Jasmin Cañas, whose ceramic and painted self-portraiture reclaim the body, one returning it to the earth, the other holding it at the intersection of motherhood and artistic selfhood. Humberto Maldonado and Tatti Carvalho push further into provocation, their paintings wielding absurdist allegory and gestural comedy to tease machismo apart at its seams, turning control into punchline and dominance into dance. Finally, Luka Fernandez and Itzel Rios-Ellis reach toward myth and ancestral memory: Fernandez conjuring anthropomorphic figures at the threshold of personhood and Andean magic, Rios-Ellis rewriting distant family histories as personal past lives, a Mexican Revolution-era Adelita standing guard over the last flowers on earth. 

EXHIBITING ARTISTS

About the Curator
Aleo Landeta (they/them) is a trans and mixed-race visual artist, curator, and educator based in Oakland whose practice spans drawing, painting, installation, and public programming. Their work centers queer joy as liberation, drawing from lived experience and the communities that have held space for them to live authentically. They have exhibited at MACLA, Bedford Gallery, Berkeley Art Center, and Jonathan Carver Moore, among others, with work held in the permanent collection of the Bakersfield Museum of Art. Recent curatorial projects include Soft Portals at 120710 Gallery (2026) and Machismosa at Root Division (2026). Recent support includes the SoEx Alternative Exposure Grant (2025), the King Artist Residency (2024), and the Homebody Fellowship at Ma’s House & BIPOC Art Studio (2022).

ABOUT ROOT DIVISION

Root Division is a visual arts non-profit in San Francisco that connects creativity and community through a dynamic ecosystem of arts education, exhibitions, and studios. Root Division’s mission is to empower artists, foster community service, inspire youth, and enrich the Bay Area through engagement in the visual arts. The organization is a launching pad for artists, a stepping-stone for educators and students, and a bridge for the general public to become involved in the arts.

Root Division is supported in part by a plethora of individual donors and grants from Grants for the Arts, California Arts Council, Walter & Elise Haas Fund, Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, Kimball Foundation, Fleishhacker Foundation, Redtail Fund of the Oregon Community Foundation, Foundation for Quality Housing Opportunities, Fred Craves Family Foundation, Violet World Foundation, Deutsche Bank, and Bill Graham Memorial Fund.