Next Big Thing: Ana Segovia
The artist conjures saturated oil paintings that offer a transgressive twist on 20th-century machismo in Mexico and the American West
Deeply inspired by the golden age of Mexican cinema, from the mid-1930s to the late ’50s, and classic Westerns, Ana Segovia conjures saturated oil paintings that offer a transgressive twist on 20th-century machismo in Mexico and the American West. “How we construct identity around gender and nationalism in these two genres articulates a mythology,” he says. “Heroes are always these tough guys.”
Beginning each work with cinematography stills, Segovia studies the formal aspects of moving images, homing in on details, such as a hyperexaggerated close-up of an ear. “I always joke that I’m the worst person to watch a film with because I’ll pause it every five seconds,” he admits.
Artistic inspiration: At Frieze art fair in London last October, Kurimanzutto gallery dedicated a solo booth to Segovia’s work, featuring a new series starring Ramón, a fictional Mexican cowboy he invented, emphasizing the character’s supermasculine form. “When I was younger, I wanted to be a filmmaker, and then I went to this extreme where I said, ‘No, I’m a painter’s painter,’ ” he explains. “I didn’t connect the two until I graduated from college, and it coincided with a time when I was really trying to figure out my own relationship to masculinity and my gender identity.”
“What I see in Ana’s paintings is a playful yet radical rewriting of the cowboy myth, where cinema’s staged masculinity unravels to make room for queer stories,” says Zélika García, Founder of Zona Maco.
A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2025 Winter issue under the headline “Next Big Things.” Subscribe to the magazine.