Gustavo Muñiz

Artist Info

Gustavo Muñizborn Torrance, California; lives Los Angeles, California

Gustavo Muñiz is a woodblock printmaker who was born in Torrance, California but grew up in southern New Mexico (Anthony, to be exact). He attended public school in Anthony and studied art in high school with printmaker Steve Edwards. After graduating, he briefly attended the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, later transferring to New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. At NMSU, Gustavo studied printmaking under Spencer Fidler, who introduced him to woodcuts and relief. After he graduated from NMSU with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (focusing on graphic design and printmaking), he began exhibiting at several juried art fairs (most notably a six-year stint with the Contemporary Hispanic Market in Santa Fe, New Mexico) and continued to work with Steve Edwards as an assistant and collaborator. Gustavo moved to Los Angeles, California in 1998, and even though he has made his livelihood working as a graphic designer since 1995, he has participated in several group, as well as solo, art exhibitions in the southern New Mexico and southern California areas. Among the galleries have been New Mexico State University Art Gallery, National Hispanic Cultural Center of New Mexico, Self-Help Graphics, Casita del Pueblo, Avenue 50 Gallery, Cal Poly Pomona Student Center Gallery, the Albuquerque Museum and others. Gustavo Muñiz’s work has also been featured in several publication, including The Carved Line: Block Printmaking in New Mexico by Museum of New Mexico Press. Most recently, a large body of his prints were acquired for the Latin Americana Special Collections by the Bancroft Library at University of California, Berkeley.

After designing with La Opinión Newspaper for 10 years and teaching Illustrator and Photoshop at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchadising for 4 years, Gustavo is now the Communications Graphic Designer with First 5 LA.

Gustavo Muñiz bought his very first cell phone in 2007, and, even though half of its use is for text messages, he insists on writing complete words and sentences when doing so.