Reissued Studios welcomes internationally exhibited Mexican artist with Red Sea, and invites Houston’s arts community to meet him over dinner.
What do we carry with us?
Stories. Language. Symbols. Memories. Histories that survive long after the people who lived them are gone.
Those questions have followed Mexican artist Fernando M. Díaz across a career that has taken him through more than 20 countries, and now brings him to Houston for Red Sea, opening Thursday, September 24 at Reissued Studios.
The multidisciplinary artist, who works between Mexico and Italy, has spent decades looking backward in order to make work about the present. History, migration, cultural identity and ancient visual languages recur throughout his paintings and sculptures, often transformed through abstraction into something simultaneously old and strikingly contemporary.
Born in Orizaba, Veracruz, Díaz trained at Mexico’s historic Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado “La Esmeralda” and later specialized in drawing at Atelier Latino in San Francisco. He has since mounted more than 50 solo exhibitions (about half in museums) and participated in more than 100 group exhibitions internationally.
But the résumé only begins to explain the work.
Díaz has long been interested in what happens when cultures, languages and histories cross paths. His Mexican and Sephardic heritage has informed work exploring identity, migration and survival, while Hebrew, Ladino and other linguistic and visual references have appeared throughout his practice.
In a 2021 interview, Díaz offered a deceptively simple observation: “En la lengua se guardan los restos” (in language, the remnants remain).
It could almost serve as a key to understanding Red Sea.
The Houston exhibition takes its title from Yam Suf (Red Sea), a mixed-media work drawing upon the Exodus and an ancient story of departure, crossing and survival. Through a contemporary lens, Díaz considers how such narratives and their symbols continue to transmit ideas about displacement, identity and human resilience across generations.
That relationship between past and present became particularly vivid for Díaz while visiting a 1,400-year-old archaeological site outside Rome. In a recorded message there, he reflected on the responsibility of younger artists to preserve history through visual language.
Art, in that sense, becomes another kind of archaeological record: something we leave behind.
From Opening Reception to Courtyard
Houston will have two very different opportunities to encounter Díaz and his work.
Red Sea opens to the public at Reissued Studios on Thursday, September 24, from 6–8 PM, and remains on view through Monday, November 30.
The following night, the experience moves beyond the traditional gallery opening.
On Friday, September 25, Reissued Studios will transform its outdoor courtyard into a gathering place for an Arts Community Dinner Honoring Fernando M. Díaz.
With room for up to 100 guests, the evening brings together artists, collectors, curators, arts leaders and friends for a buffet-style dinner, cocktails, music and an opportunity to meet Díaz while experiencing the exhibition.
Rather than rushing through another crowded opening reception, guests can linger.
Look at the work. Meet the artist. Have a drink. Share dinner. And spend an evening among some of the people who make Houston’s arts community interesting.
For Reissued Studios, the gathering also reflects a larger ambition: creating experiences around art that extend beyond simply putting work on gallery walls and invite people into the conversation surrounding it.
And perhaps there could be no more appropriate way to welcome Díaz.
For an artist whose work asks what people carry from one place and generation to another, Houston will gather around art, food and community to continue the conversation.
RED SEA
FERNANDO M. DÍAZ
ON VIEW September 24–November 20, 2026
OPENING RECEPTION
Thursday, September 24 | 6–8 PM
The exhibition and opening reception are free and open to the public.
ARTS COMMUNITY DINNER
HONORING FERNANDO M. DÍAZ
Friday, September 25, 2026 | 6–9 PM
TICKETED DINNER
Reissued Studios | Outdoor Courtyard
Tickets: $75 | Limited capacity
Buffet dinner, cocktails and music
Art-inspired cocktail attire
