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Delaware Division of the Arts
Close-up portrait of a smiling woman with long dark hair and bangs, wearing a black top and a septum ring, photographed outdoors near a brick wall with climbing greenery.

Itzel Aguilar

Emerging

Folk Art: Visual Arts

Georgetown

"“Choosing to be an artist is an act of sacrifice, but it has also granted me the freedom to pursue what I love most.”"

Work Samples

Square mixed-media wall work in fluorescent coral pink and pale gray, featuring repeating organic cutout shapes and a dark translucent central form layered over the surface. Loose strands of thread extend beyond the edges, giving the piece a delicate, handmade quality against the white wall.
Small mixed-media wall piece with a textured turquoise-blue background and a layered white arch made of intricate cut, looping forms. A small pink and purple sculptural element sits near the center, while black tulle and a bright pink strip extend below the rectangular piece against a white wall.
Floor-based mixed-media sculpture made of long coiled tube-like forms in turquoise, coral red, and brown, each painted with white dots. The intertwined shapes rest on black sheer fabric spread across a white floor, with thin wires looping through the sculpture and creating a nest-like arrangement.

About the Artist

Written by Gail Obenreder

A first-generation Mexican American, Itzel Aguilar finds that her personal and artistic life “bridges Delaware and [Mexico] spaces where memory, ancestry, and healing conflate into visual language.” The mixed-media artist grew up in a family of four in Sussex County; her parents were “typical hard-working immigrants who came to the states in the early 1980s.” As an adult, Aguilar moved to Vallarta in 2020, remaining for a year as she “started the trajectory of [her] career, and she now continues to travel between Delaware and Mexico.

A 2009 graduate of Delaware College of Art and Design, she began working in watercolor, cut paper, and traditional textiles, creating pieces that “evoked familial stories, botanical forms, and spiritual connection.” As her practice developed, Aguilar became influenced by the Nahuatl concept of Te Ánima (Someone’s Soul) and studied the Mexican cosmology Yolía, inviting viewers of her art to “look beyond surface color toward hidden depth and spiritual introspection.” Over the past four years, Aguilar has had two solo exhibitions – in Casa Belgrado (Buenos Aires) and Maryland’s Salisbury Art Space – and participated in six regional and Mexican group shows.

Her maturing practice has also led her into the field of public art, creating murals and community projects. She has six of these public artworks on view in Puerto Vallarta, and in Delaware her mural “Welcome to Our Community” can be seen in the town of Milton. Aguilar hopes to expand her artistic and community driven vision by creating a Latinx-centered nonprofit, B’alam Cultural Arts, that she hopes will “amplify the transformative necessity of art … vital to personal and communal healing.

Aguilar currently works with Georgetown Councilwoman Christina Diaz to gain firsthand experience in local government and public policy, seeking to better understand the workings of municipal government and civic leadership. “My goal is not only to learn, but also to help inspire Latino participation. She hopes to use her art as a tool for civic engagement, creating work that “encourages dialogue, representation, and political awareness” in the community, and she ultimately hopes to “bridge creative practice and public service to empower future Latino leaders.”

As an artist, Aguilar has come to work in her discipline organically, shaped by her family, her surroundings, and “the everyday stories I witnessed growing up.” She found herself drawn to creative expression as a way to “understand my surroundings … a safe space during challenging family dynamics [and] a quiet act of healing before I had language for it,” and feels strongly that the freedom to be an artist is “a privilege.”

She is continually inspired by her culture and by those who have helped to shape her, both as an artist and as a person. One of her greatest joys is the ability to give back to the community. A former Sussex County Montessori art educator, Aguilar found that being a person of color in a teaching role “carried deep significance.” She believes that “representation matters” and was “intentional about showing my students that creativity, curiosity, and possibility are not limited by background,” something she herself has fought for and achieved.

Aguilar enjoys singing, reading, dancing, skateboarding, and “volunteering my time whenever possible.” The Division Fellowship’s “critical support” will enable her to broaden her experiences, and she plans to seek additional opportunities for creative residencies, engage with new communities, and continue to develop her sustainable and ever-evolving artistic practice.