Urban Litanies | Jesus Mejia at Lado-B, San José | Latin American Artist Exploring Urban Violence

Having opened on 1 November at Lado-B in downtown San José, Urban Litanies presents a major new body of work by Jesus Mejia, an emerging Latin American artist from San José, Costa Rica, who examines the psychological and political textures of contemporary life. This exhibition showcases ten large-scale paintings on paper, an installation, and a new video piece, and was accompanied by live music for the opening.

Mejia describes the project as a response to “the massive media bombardment about the increase in urban insecurity” currently dominating Costa Rican news cycles. Through his powerful paintings, he reframes that anxiety as something communal and ritualistic, an echo chamber of fear and faith.

Painting the unease of the present

The exhibition takes its name from the structure of the Christian rosary, where litanies are prayers recited in repetition to seek protection or salvation. Mejia adapts that format to contemporary life, transforming scenes of violence and unease into what he calls “new litanies,” secular invocations that mirror the public’s sense of helplessness in unsafe urban spaces.

“Starting from the litanies, I transformed those scenes of violence and fear into new prayers,” Mejia explains. “It’s a way of representing how the population feels — trapped, vulnerable, looking for meaning or safety.”

In Urban Litanies, the works are steeped in emotional immediacy, reflecting how media imagery has become the shared language of crisis. The show is his response to Costa Rica seeing a surge in violent crime and public concern over urban insecurity, sparking daily coverage and debate. Mejia paints the atmosphere this tension creates, the sense of living amid perpetual alert.

A Latin American artist exploring urban violence, Mejia brings a socially attuned perspective that situates him within a wider current of Costa Rican contemporary painting, one where artists use allegory and scale to process collective experience. His work connects to a broader regional lineage, from the politically charged murals of Mexico to the psychological realism that defines much of Central American art today.

Costa Rica is often imagined through its tropical landscapes and natural beauty, yet the country’s contemporary artists are increasingly inspired by the complexities of urban life. Urban Litanies belongs to this conversation, one in which Latin American artists use their practice to confront the difficult social realities shaping the region today.

Valley of Tears

Jesus Mejia, Valley of Tears, Acrylic on paper, 170 x 175 cm | 67 x 69 in.

At the centre of the exhibition is Valley of Tears, a large painting that encapsulates the tone of the series. Against a wall of roaring flames, hooded figures in hazmat suits flank a group of children — one shirtless, one in a bright yellow shirt — as if caught between catastrophe and ordinary play. A man stands on a wrecked car, balanced between command and escape.

The composition is cinematic. The fire dominates the background, painted in gestural strokes of orange and red, while the figures are rendered in cool, muted tones that pull them into uneasy contrast. The children, seemingly unaware or resigned, anchor the painting’s emotional charge.

Mejia’s use of scale intensifies the experience: the paper’s large format envelops the viewer, making it difficult to remain detached. The work also oscillates between documentation and allegory, evoking the biblical valley of tears, which is a place of suffering and endurance, but here it remains very much in the present.

Jesus Mejia, Ruins of a House of Gold, Acrylic on paper, 180 x 180 cm | 71 x 71 in.

Another painting in the show, Ruins of a House of Gold, continues this dialogue between decay and devotion. A solitary figure stands amid debris, surrounded by pigs and the remains of a collapsed structure. The setting feels apocalyptic. Together, the works build a portrait of contemporary Costa Rica not as we know it.

Lado-B, a venue known for its emphasis on experimental and socially engaged exhibitions, provides an apt setting for Mejia’s latest series as a Latin American artist exploring urban violence. The artist uses its nontraditional environment to expand beyond the canvas — the installation and video components extend his meditation on the spectacle of violence into sound and motion.

“The exhibition is not only about fear,” Mejía notes, “but about how we process it collectively, through repetition, through images, through ritual.”

Jesus Mejia

Born in San José in 1993, Jesus Mejia is an emerging Latin American artist exploring urban violence. Working across painting, installation and video, he examines the tension between media spectacle, faith and lived experience, using his work to reflect on social unrest and urban transformation.

Mejia uses the contrasts of light and dark as metaphors for survival and faith in public life.  Mejia draws on tenebrism, the Baroque technique of heightening drama through stark contrasts of light and shadow. This interplay of luminosity and darkness infuses his scenes with moral and emotional gravity, transforming acts of violence into moments of uneasy contemplation. Working within a current of contemporary neo-academicism, he combines classical control with expressive immediacy, merging rigorous technique with the raw tension of lived experience.

In 2024, Mejia received a National Prize for Visual Arts and third place at the CROMA Biennial, marking him as one of the most compelling young artists working in Costa Rica today. His work continues to evolve within a wider regional dialogue within Latin America that links personal faith, social reality and the poetics of darkness, and illumination.

Urban Litanies runs at Lado-B, San José, until 22 November. Visit MÍRAME Fine Art to explore more of Jesus Mejia’s work — a Latin American artist exploring urban violence with rare clarity and conviction

Explore more of Jesús Mejia’s work on his MÍRAME artist page.

For more information, please contact Belinda Seppings at [email protected] or visit miramefineart.com.

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