There isn’t any singular artist or style of art that can capture the sheer magnitude and energy of a city as vibrant as Mexico’s capital. And yet, when it comes to understanding the idiosyncratic beauties of Mexico’s biggest metro region — particularly in its vast, sprawling neighborhoods — local artists can offer a small window through which to begin to explore, if not understand, Mexico City’s unbridled soulfulness and social fabrics.
Lilmister P is one of those artists, a contemporary muralist, designer and “Hypervector” expressionist — a phrase he says captures his sense of dimensionality and depth in whatever he aims to create — from Iztapalapa. Located in the city’s southeastern outskirts, Iztapalapa is among the most populated neighborhoods in Mexico City but is often overlooked by outsiders and lacks the major touristic appeal of Mexico City’s other offerings. Still, it’s home to a rich lineage of artistry, including Fábrica de Artes y Oficios, Centro Cultural Iztapalapa, Sala Quetzalcóatl and Centro Cultural Casa de Las Bombas. These arts and culture centers have long provided Mexico City’s residents with film screenings, dance productions, art workshops, book clubs, pottery classes and more.
That all shaped Lilmister P as an aspiring artist who was born and raised in the borough, where he attended high school and studied graphic design, learning how to screen print and stencil at an early age — techniques he later applied to create clothing, stickers, and painting on canvases. Five years ago, he founded Hechizas, a clothing and lifestyle brand that jokingly plays on Mexican themes of bootleggery found in flea markets as a nod to his Iztapalapa upbringing.
“I like to speak loud and be proud of being born in Iztapalapa,” he says. “Through many years people have seen my area as a dangerous and problematic space in the city. But I like to show the bright side of it, like the Viacrucis. [The annual event] gathers thousands of people from all over the country and also foreigners who come to live the experience [through a dramatic reenactment of religious events in the city’s streets].”
The Chilango artist’s talents have caught the eyes of those beyond just his neighborhood, though, attracting major global brands like UnderArmour, Jordan Brand, Formula 1 and more. When F1 was in town for its annual Grand Prix this past October, Lilmister P was tasked with designing custom lucha libre masks — inspired by the sugar skull tradition of Día de Muertos — for F1 drivers Carlos Sainz and Alexander Albon of Williams Racing. Both drivers personally received the skulls and signed them. Sainz (who is a particularly notable race car driver and whose father, Carlos Sainz Sr., was a famously influential World Rally Championship driver in the 1980s and 90s who was beloved by Spanish-speaking fans worldwide) filmed a video in which he speaks about Lilmister P’s masks and celebrates being in Mexico.
The F1 racing team found Lilmister P’s work online and contacted him about the collaboration. The mask’s details and nuances highlight Lilmister P’s attention to detail, creativity and, Mexican identity. For Sainz, the mask features the driver’s car number, 55, on the forehead, which is a Mexican tradition to honor relatives on sugar skulls; it also contains a mustache made from chilis, since that is Sainz’s nickname. For Albon, Lilmister P prominently stitched lotus flowers, since Albon is from Thailand, where the flower holds significant cultural and religious symbology; the mask also mimics cat whiskers, since Albon is known to be a cat lover.
Lucha masks are certainly a popular trope in Mexican art. But for Lilmister P, they’re more than just a one-off gimmick. A defining element of Lilmister P’s work is his artistic persona, which he signals by constantly wearing a lucha libre mask wherever he goes. In fact, there are no public photos of him without his mask. Having grown up as a lucha libre fan, he references watching both CMLL and AAA (two of Mexico’s largest lucha libre organizations) at his grandparents’ home with his cousins, where he learned to appreciate the superhuman artistry and theatrics of it all.
“I’ve loved lucha libre since I was a kid,” he says. “I’ve never seen a real superhero, like Batman or Superman, but I’ve seen Dos Caras and Tinieblas. Those guys were real. Now, wearing a mask represents my alter ego, a character that only shows up when I wear it. I’m not a luchador, but I respect the mask tradition and I don’t like to make it look funny or anything.”
The masks he wears vary, but they generally use a black fabric as the base, with white and sometimes red adornments that flare up the nose and around the sides of the skull, while incorporating fangs, extra eyes on the head, and other quirks. In his mask, he has traveled around Mexico to regions like Oaxaca and Puebla, where he is regularly commissioned to muralize walls, often done in dedication to the spirit of Mexican culture and customs.
Next up, the designer-slash-muralist is planning to launch a series of clothing items dedicated to the EZLN, or Zapatista Movement, an indigenous rights group which became internationally known in 1994 for nominally declaring war against Mexico’s government and corruption. Lilmister P also plans to paint a mural in Iztapalapa for Viacrucis.
When asked where his work can be found, he responds like a genuine street artist of the people, known for democratizing the accessibility of art for all, no matter what social class one might belong to. And despite his big name partnerships, he remains rooted where he was raised.
“The streets will always be my favorite space to show everything I do.”
Alan Chazaro is the author of “This Is Not a Frank Ocean Cover Album,” “Piñata Theory” and “Notes From the Eastern Span of the Bay Bridge” (Ghost City Press, 2021). He is a graduate of June Jordan’s Poetry for the People program at UC Berkeley and a former Lawrence Ferlinghetti Fellow at the University of San Francisco. His writing can be found in GQ, NPR, The Guardian, L.A. Times and more. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, he is currently based in Veracruz.