Jorge Rojas, Mexican American Flag (In dependence) 2010, Fabric Flag, 5 x 8 feet 
Jorge Rojas, Chac Mool, 2021. Video still: Joshua Samson. Courtesy of the artist. 
Jorge Rojas, cage, 2019, 8th Annual Salt Lake City Performance Art Festival_Photo: Trisha Empey_Courtesy of the artist. 
Jorge Rojas, Dios Mío, De Donde Vengo / My God, Where Do I Come From, 2024, Photography Installation (detail). 37 Archival Pigment Prints. Dimensions Variable_Courtesy of the artist. 
Jorge Rojas, Dios Mío, De Donde Vengo / My God, Where Do I Come From, 2024, Photography Installation (detail). 37 Archival Pigment Prints. Dimensions Variable_Courtesy of the artist. 
Jorge Rojas, Mandala de Maíz: Gente de Maíz / Corn Mandala: People of Corn (aerial view), 2021, Kimball Art Center. Archival Print on Aluminum Dibond, 40 x 40 inches_Courtesy of the artist. 
Jorge Rojas, tether, 2018, 7th Annual Salt Lake City Performance Art Festival_Photo: Adelaide Ryder_Courtesy of the artist. 
Installation View: Jorge Rojas, Chac Mool, 2021. Video: Joshua Samson. Courtesy of the artist. 
Jorge Rojas: COYOTEK
February 28 – July 13, 2025
Coyotek is a solo exhibition by Mexican-American artist Jorge Rojas. The exhibition showcases Rojas’s diverse artistic practice, featuring a selection of his work, including photography, performance videos, and installations created over the past two decades. His work aims to build bridges of understanding between cultures, fostering a flow and exchange of ideas that resonate with people from all walks of life.
The title, Coyotek, is a playful neologism reflecting an identity and aesthetic woven from Rojas’s interest in borders and immigration policy through his own multicultural immigrant experience. Rojas’s work is not just about bridging ideas and concepts across cultures, but also about creating a sense of connection.
As part of last year’s Día de los Muertos celebration, the El Paso Museum of Art commissioned Rojas to create Corn Mandala: Mictlān, a site-specific installation using colorful natural corn kernels to honor maize’s cultural and spiritual significance.
Born in Morelos, Mexico, Jorge Rojas is a multidisciplinary artist, independent curator, and museum educator. He studied Art at the University of Utah and at Bellas Artes in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Rojas uses performance, visual art, and social engagement to examine cultural, social, and mediated forms of communication. His work and curatorial projects have been exhibited nationally and internationally in galleries and museums including Museo del Barrio and Queens Museum of Art in New York; New World Museum and Project Row Houses in Houston; Utah Museum of Fine Arts and Utah Museum of Contemporary Art in Salt Lake City; Utah Valley University Museum of Art in Orem; Ex Convento del Carmen, Guadalajara; and FOFA Gallery at Concordia University, Montreal. He has received grants and fellowships including National Performance Network, Experimental Television Center, West Chicago City Museum, Vermont Studio Center, Project Row Houses, The Creative Center, Utah Arts & Museums Fellowship, and NALAC. His work is included in numerous private and public collections including The Mexican Museum, San Francisco; Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach; New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, Salt Lake County and Alice Merrill Horne, Utah. In 2019 Artists of Utah/15 Bytes named Rojas one of Utah’s Most Influential Artists. In 2022 he was selected as a Visual Arts Fellow for the Utah Division of Arts & Museums, and received the Salt Lake City Mayor’s Artist Award. And in 2024 he received a NALAC Fund for the Arts award. From 2015 to 2021, Rojas was director of learning and engagement at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, where he oversaw education, community outreach, and adult programming initiatives for the Museum. Rojas is actively involved in the Salt Lake City community as an artist, educator, curator, and is a passionate advocate for advancing racial and cultural justice through the arts.
We are grateful to the El Paso Museum of Art for making this exhibition possible. Special thanks to Michael Reyes, Claudia Preza, and Edward Hayes for working with us throughout the development of the exhibition.
After El Paso Museum of Art, Coyotek went on to Gittens Gallery at the University of Utah. Below is a review from the exhibition.
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