Vicente Telles

Santero and painter Vicente Telles is known for painting traditional retablos and contemporary paintings with reinterpretations of traditional iconography combined with social commentary. Telles was born in 1983 in Albuquerque, New Mexico to working class parents. He grew up the South Valley and enrolled at the University of New Mexico with the aim of being a teacher. When a Chicano studies professor made an offhand remark about santeros, Telles looked into the topic and was inspired to try to start painting. He left college to take a job in California at a manufacturing firm that supplied home decor where he learned about color technique and the impact of texture, before returning to New Mexico and apprentice with established santeros. His work has won awards at the New Mexico State Fair and the Traditional Spanish Market in Santa Fe and has been exhibited in galleries and museums in New Mexico, California, Pennsylvania and Colorado. He lives and works in Albuquerque, New Mexico.