The carnival arrives as it does every year in San Martín Tilcajete, a town renowned for its Mexican folk art thanks to its copal wood carvings, decorated with unique designs and multicolored dyes. This passion for the artistic has also led the community to preserve other cultural expressions, including a unique Holy Week carnival, where the devils are the main attraction.

This project is conceived from the diversity of reflections that arise in the person who experiences the carnival by oiling themselves, masking up, and taking to the streets. It is in that precise moment where humanity is replaced by an image of an animal, when the devils transform from anonymity, shouting, running, and striking with freedom. Thus, a masked person unleashes their most vital impulses, shining in a performative act where the sun adorns the satin black on their skin.

Behind a Mask shows that the workshop Jacobo and María Ángeles has been enriching and spreading this carnival for several years by recovering its vernacular elements, incorporating a unique aesthetic vision with the production of masks that are the result of an anthropological, cultural, and artistic process.

This collection has been presented in various venues dedicated to preserving and promoting culture, in Oaxaca at the San Pablo Cultural Center, and throughout the country thanks to the efforts of Fomento Cultural Citi Banamex as the main promoter of this exhibition, at the National Museum of Anthropology and History in Mexico City, the Casa Montejo Museum in Mérida, and at the Casa del Mayorazgo de la Canal in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato.

"They shine in the scorching midday sun. In the streets, they display deep blues or reddish hues. Like masters of the world, they shout, run, jump, and crack the whip. It is whispered that something is hidden beneath the masks. The townspeople barely hear them and come out to see them; soon the exclamations are heard: What beautiful devils!"

Cuauhtémoc Peña, 2019