Octavio Ocampo

Octavio Ocampo (28 February 1943 - ) was born in Celaya, Guanajuato, Mexico. He grew up in a family of designers, and studied art from early childhood. At art school, Ocampo constructed papier mache figures for floats, altars, and ornaments that were used during carnival parades and other festivals. In high school, Ocampo painted murals for the Preparatory School and the City Hall of Celaya. Ruth Riviera, daughter of artist and muralist Diego Rivera, and Maria Luisa Mendoza encouraged him to attend the School of Painting and Sculpture of the National Fine Art Institute.

The talents of Octavio Ocampo are not limited to painting and sculpture, but also extended to acting and dancing. At the Art Institute of San Francisco, he studied all these disciplines and pursued both a film and theater career. In 1976, he began to devote himself solely to painting and sculpture. He now works primarily in the metamorphic style – using a technique of superimposing and juxtaposing realistic and figurative details within the images that he creates.

"I am fascinated by the forces of Good and Evil and the Sun (male) and the Moon (female). I live in Tepoztlan, which is a mountainous region southwest of Mexico City, and is considered to be one of the most magical places on earth. Like the Bermuda triangle, there is a strange and unexplained, but extremely powerful, confluence of magnetic forces seemingly concentrated in the Tepozteco Mountain."