Naive Self-Taught Art

I never studied in an art academy. My teachers have been curiosity, stubbornness, and the desire to understand how things come alive. That is why I describe my work as naive self-taught art — not because it is simple, but because it is honest.

Naive art comes from a place untouched by formal rules. It doesn’t follow the “correct” techniques or the traditional paths that schools teach. It follows instinct, emotion, and the inner need to express something without asking for permission. That is where I come from.

Being self-taught has shaped everything about my process.
I learned by breaking, rebuilding, and trying again.
I learned by watching how materials behave, how color changes a mood, how a gesture can transform a figure into a character. Every improvement, every new detail, came from practice — not theory.

To me, naive art is a way of seeing the world with curiosity instead of judgment. It is opening space for imagination to guide the hand. It is trusting that the piece knows where it wants to go.

People sometimes look at my mojigangas and Catrinas and say they feel something: nostalgia, joy, mystery, childhood, even tenderness. I think that comes from the naive spirit inside the work. Because naive art doesn’t try to impress — it tries to connect.

What makes my art “self-taught” is not lack of knowledge; it is the freedom to discover everything on my own terms. I follow traditions, yes, but I also bend them, play with them, reinterpret them. I create characters that mix culture, humor, memory, and experimentation.

Naive art, for me, is the permission to stay honest.
To keep learning.
To stay close to the child who used to imagine giants walking among us.

Everything I create — every puppet, every Catrina, every character — carries that spirit.

It is imperfect, emotional, and alive.

That is what naive self-taught art means to me.

— Antonio Lapierre