Creativity is the thing that sort of animates us.

I think it's essential.

It’s so essential that if I don't have something to do that feels creative, then I feel like I'm not being, you know, my human self.

My name is Lupe Galván and I am a painter.

My father's family is from Mexico.

They're from Guadalajara.

My mother's background is, is Huichol.

Huichol people are an indigenous group in Mexico.

I grew up doing farm work.

And it was really, really hard.

I remember really, really being very upset that I had to do it.

Growing up, art was something that I came across via my sister, who had a sketchbook.

And I remember asking her what she was doing and she was like, “I'm drawing.” And I said, “Can I look?” And I was, it was like magic, because she was just like, so many different things.

And I was like, “I want to do that!” And then later, when she went to college, she gave me an art history book.

And I just, I was in disbelief.

I was like, “Oh my God, what is this?” And I would keep it next to the bed and, you know, just look at it and look at it.

And I would imagine I was at the top of the hill, you know, and instead of working, I was actually outside doing plein air paintings.

And it was just like, this little world that I had created for myself unknowingly.

I saw an opportunity that if I could go to an art school, um, then I would take it.

I applied at the New York Academy of Art, got a scholarship.

And I was like, “Wow, this is going to change my life.” So this is a painting that's inspired by Titian's “Bacchus and Ariadne.” I love Titian paintings.

And I guess in some ways I wanted to make it my own.

And the painting is called “Ancestors.” In the Titian painting, Ariadne is abandoned on an island, and Bacchus sees her and immediately, you know, falls in love with her.

But I wanted to retell the story.

In some ways, it's like the story of what I imagine was happening with my ancestors.

And so they're engaged in this dance, a kind of, like, perpetual dance of time.

The figure is representative of my mom or my grandmother.

Because to me, the idea, the notion of a matriarchy is, like, is a very important element.

I mean, it's kind of how I grew up.

And most indigenous cultures were matriarchies.

If you look at her feet, you know, they're like, powerful, very strong feet.

They're almost like roots, you know, the, they’re the people of the land.

The idea of ancestry is that there was another me at some point.

I'm striking a pose that isn't exactly a masculine pose.

I love the idea that masculinity can be a little bit vulnerable.

There is a skeleton.

And that is an homage to the European “vanitas,” which is a constant reminder of, you know, death being around the corner.

It is also representative of genocide that occurred in a lot of the untold stories of the colonization of the Americas.

This is a clay dog that is known as a xoloitzcuintle, which is a Mesoamerican, uh, hairless dog.

And then the hare represents the scribe in sort of Mesoamerican culture.

So he is the one who records what is happening, but he cannot intervene.

And then there's, uh, an effigy that's being burned.

It is an homage to José Clemente Orozco.

So Orozco did a painting that was called “The Man of Fire.” He represents a new race that's going to be born out of chaos.

Where people were going to cast their notions of race and nationality into the fires.

The way that I work is I use a tablet, and I look for images.

Like if I was a director, who do I want to play the part of the hare or the dog?

When a painting is going well, uh, it makes me feel great.

There can be a huge time span where I forget to eat or, you know, I forgot everything else that was happening.

When it's not going so well, then I feel, then I feel like a failure, and I question, um, “Why did I do painting?” So a lot has changed.

And one of those things is building an addition to a house that we bought, and getting married.

So the painting was pretty much in storage.

In the previous segment, the woman had not been fully realized.

Since this painting is really essentially a love story, I wanted her turned more, so that you can at least see, you know, an idea that there's an engagement there.

I changed the clothing.

I wanted this to have, like, more of a natural look.

I think of myself as, you know, a byproduct of how I grew up, but also simultaneously having a love for European painting.

I don't have to praise all of the horrible things that happened under the regime of Europe and European art.

But they did do amazing things.

They did do beautiful things.

I think some of those stories are beautiful, too.

And the question I'm asking is, “Are our stories not beautiful as well?”