Adrián Arias
Adrián Arias is an international multidisciplinary artist of Peruvian Indigenous heritage working across visual art, poetry, performance, and social practice. His work explores dreams, memory, and ancestral knowledge as tools to connect communities and reimagine reality through creativity.
Rooted in a belief that art is a transformative act rather than only a final object, his practice engages public space as a site for reflection, justice, and collective imagination. Through murals, installations, live performance, and collaborative projects, he creates work that amplifies marginalized voices and fosters dialogue around equality, peace, and cultural identity—particularly within Indigenous and immigrant communities in the United States.
His public art projects in the Bay Area, including large-scale murals and community installations, often focus on visibility and remembrance, turning everyday spaces into platforms for shared history and connection. Alongside his visual work, he organizes collaborative artistic gatherings that bring together poets, musicians, and visual artists in multidisciplinary exchanges.
Arias has exhibited and performed internationally, with solo exhibitions in San Francisco and the Bay Area, alongside numerous public commissions, residencies, and community-based projects. His work has been presented at the Exploratorium, de Young Museum, Oakland Museum of California, California Museum (Sacramento), SOMArts, BAMPFA, Google, the San Francisco Symphony, Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, and Burning Man.
He has received public commissions from the San Francisco Arts Commission, including the Shaping Legacy program, where he developed a temporary monument honoring paleteros (ice cream vendors). He also created a large-scale series of posters for Market Street bus shelters in San Francisco, highlighting the cultural and ancestral influence of the Mission District, as well as multiple mural commissions focused on increasing visibility for Indigenous cultures.
At the core of his practice is the belief that creation is an act of liberation—that imagination itself can open pathways toward dignity, healing, and collective transformation. Visit his website for events, new art and connection. https://adrianarias.com
Artwork Gallery
1. "Dolores Huerta visited by her ancestors," ink & watercolor on paper, 26"x40", 2024
Reflection Questions:
What is Dolores Huerta's legacy? What associations arise from the imagery?
2. "A Poem for the Dead," altar, Dreams Emerging, Beyond Resilience: Día de Los Muertos 2021, SOMArts Cultural Center.
Dedicated to five Latinx killed by police brutality in the U.S. and Mexico.
-Mario González, 26, killed by suffocation, Alameda, California, April 19, 2021.
-Victoria Salazar, 36, killed by suffocation, Tulum, Mexico, March 27, 2021.
-Sean Monterossa, 22, killed by 5 shots, Vallejo, California, June 4, 2020.
-Angel Zapata Hernández, 24, killed by suffocation, San Diego, California, October 15, 2019.
-Claudia Patricia Gómez González, 20, killed by a shot in the head by a Border Patrol agent,
Rio Bravo, Texas, May 23, 2018.
Reflection Questions:
Had you heard of these killings before?
How can artwork and altars like this help address the injustices they are reflecting?
3. “8:46*” altar installed at Living Legacies: Día de Los Muertos 2020, SOMArts Cultural Center.
8:46* poem by Adrián Arias
(Read the poem with heavy breathing, pausing without breathing between stanzas)
It’s hard to be an angel, but you learn.
The policeman’s boot suffocating my neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds
are the swords stuck in my body.
It’s like the betrayal of love
the unexpected attack from behind.
( … )
But do I want to be an angel?
Someone made the decision for me.
The chill in my chest is endless.
When you are an angel you can feel the pain of others,
the sky and the stars weigh more than a mountain.
( … )
When you are an angel you are everywhere and nowhere
spreading your wings like swords
assisting those who are attacked by the red and blue lights.
It’s hard to be an angel
but you learn.
* 8:46 refers to the time in minutes George Floyd was suffocated by police until he died.
Reflection Questions:
How did the murder of George Floyd impact your community?
What have we as a country learned since 2020? How did we change? What has been the backlash?
4. "Angel of the New Revolution," pencil, charcoal, red wine, rainwater on Arches 300, 20"x28", 2017
Reflection Questions:
What comes to mind when you see the image of a gun being made of a tree limb and pencils?
What connections might the artist be trying to make?
5. "Pacha Mama, what makes a new place feel like home?" mixed media on Arches paper, 30"x42", 2024
Reflection Questions:
How are these images reflecting ideas about "home"?
What does home mean to you?
6. "Sacred Potato," watercolor & ink on Arches paper, 22"x30", 2023
Reflection Questions:
How does this image make meaning from variations of the word "papa"?
Why do some things/entities get worshiped more than others?
7. "Fantastic Animal #5,” acrylic on canvas, 24"x24", in pandemic, 2020.
Painting and drawing are part of the multidisciplinary weave that I practice to show my illusions and passions, to get closer to the zig-zag of the symbols of creation, those that my ancestors left me in dreams, and to tell truths that sometimes need to be painted. Pencils and liquid paint flowing, like imaginary fish growing in the air, and my hands full of colors, eyes closed, eyes open. That’s my reality reinvented every day.
Reflection Questions:
With the unexpected pairing of images here, what ideas does this painting spark for you?
What have you learned from or about your ancestors?
8. “River to the Sky,” mural, Turk & Hyde Streets, San Francisco. Latex-acrylic on wall, 2700 sq ft, Dec 2021 - Jan 2022
A three-story mural at the site of the Black Hawk nightclub (1949-1973) blends the history of the famed jazz club with Black Lives Matter and the ancestral roots of the Ohlone and Mochica people. It was created with community input including musicians. Commissioned by The Luggage Store Gallery and the Someland Foundation.
Reflection Questions:
What famous musicians are depicted? How does arrangement of the imagery relate to their musical genre?
How do the letters BLM connect to the other images in this mural?
9. "Live painting with LoCura Band," Yerba Buena Gardens, 2021
Reflection Questions:
Have you seen live painting before?
What can we learn by witnessing art being made?