Benjamin Muñoz, Defiant Joy, 2026
Serigraph, Edition of 60
Image Size: 19.5 in x 25.5 in, Paper Size: 22 in x 30 in

Benjamin Muñoz’s Defiant Joy is a six-layer serigraph print that serves as a love letter to Chicano culture and to the communities that continue to cultivate joy, togetherness, and celebration despite systems designed to marginalize them. The work reflects on the resilience required to maintain cultural identity while navigating economic hardship, displacement, generational sacrifice, and the difficult realities of adapting to environments that are often openly hostile toward immigrant communities.

Created during a moment marked by renewed immigration enforcement, ongoing ICE raids, and increasingly aggressive rhetoric surrounding race and belonging in America, Defiant Joy centers a simple but urgent proposition: that community and joy itself can be an act of defiance.

In communities that have historically endured oppression, the act of gathering, celebrating culture, caring for family, and continuing traditions becomes more than survival; it becomes resistance.

Defiant Joy is a limited edition serigraph print published by Self Help Graphics and made available through Hecho a Mano Gallery and Self Help Graphics & Art.

Read more about this print in Self Help Graphics & Art’s blog.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Benjamin Muñoz is a Dallas-based multidisciplinary artist known for his monumental relief woodcuts, paintings, and installations exploring themes of labor, identity, family history, and the complexities of contemporary American life through a distinctly Chicano lens. His work is held in numerous public collections across the United States, including the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, the Blanton Museum of Art, the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, El Museo del Barrio, the National Museum of Mexican Art, and the Library of Congress. His practice often examines the intersections of culture, resilience, community, and belonging.

https://www.benjaminmunoz.com/

ABOUT HECHO A MANO

Hecho a Mano is based in Santa Fe, NM and focuses on art at the intersection of imagination, innovation and tradition and works primarily with artists based in New Mexico & Mexico. Hecho’s goal is to create deep roots of support for artists and exhibit art that is both accessible and genre-defying. We have a particular interest in printmaking.

One of our goals is to showcase work that exists at both ends of the spectrum of price, functionality, and that of “folk” vs “fine” art. We believe the value of art lies not in price, function, established acceptance, or academic context. Value in artwork is inherent as art-making is inherently human. The gates that are constructed to make art seem inaccessible and exclusive are unnecessary, and we discard them.

www.hechoamano.org