Atlanta Art Exhibit “Nuestra Creación” Spotlights Latino Voices and Stories

Latino and Immigrant art in the heart of Atlanta

By Daniela Cintron

Published September 5, 2025

Add Discover ATL as a preferred source on Google

Articulo diponíble en español.

When: Sept. 5-28, 2025
Where: Echo Contemporary Arts on the Westside

Atlanta’s walls tell stories, from colorful murals on the Atlanta Beltline to gallery walls across the city. Among the artists leaving their mark is El Salvador–born Patricia Hernandez, who has helped transform the city into a platform for immigrant and BIPOC creatives through her initiative, Nuestra Creación.

“I had this dream to bring visibility in the metro Atlanta area to Latino artists like me,” Hernandez said.

In 2019, Hernandez founded Nuestra Creación (Our Creation in Spanish), which began as a pop-up art exhibit and has since evolved into an exhibit and community.

With such a large segment of the population being Latino, for Hernandez, it was important that the rest of the population took notice of their work. “It’s not just [art] for us. It’s for everyone,” she said.

Photographed, Patricia Hernandez with co-founder Diego Torres. (Photo courtesy of Nuestra Creación)

To accomplish that, over the years, Hernandez has secured partnerships with galleries that reach a broad audience beyond Latinos, such as MINT Gallery and Old Rabbit Gallery. 

In 2025, for the third year in a row, Echo Contemporary Arts is home to Nuestra Creación. “It’s a great opportunity for me to contribute to the art community and for them to be able to show their work,” said Jessica Helfrecht, owner of Echo Contemporary Arts, a female-owned gallery focused on exhibiting emerging to mid-career artists with the intention of bringing diversity to the forefront.

Museums and galleries have the potential to change communities and perspectives. Latino representation in the visual arts empowers future generations, strengthens communities and advances cultural equity. 

Photographed, artist Evie Lozano. (Photo courtesy of Nuestra Creación)

While organizations aim to target the issue at a national level, Hernandez set out to move the needle in Atlanta. 

Nuestra Creación has fostered the nuances and diversity within the Latino community.

“We might all be Latinos and we might all live in Atlanta, but every story is so unique and the way we each look at art is also unique,” said Santi Saucedo, a sculptural artist from Mexico City who officially launched his art career in 2023, showcasing his Mexican-inspired ceramics at Nuestra Creación. 

“Patty gave me my first opportunity to showcase. I got to meet a lot of artists, and it kind of blossomed from there,” said Saucedo about Hernandez, who has since exhibited and sold pieces all over the city. “It’s an incredible mix of people from different age groups and levels of experience. It sort of built up that confidence for me to put my pieces out there.” 

One of those experienced artists Saucedo connected with is Alex Ferror, a Brazilian immigrant who fell in love with drawing at a very young age. In his 30s, his wife enrolled him in a spray painting class in São Paulo that sparked his interest. Before moving to the United States, he painted colorful murals depicting children in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas – impoverished neighborhoods. Hoping to bring joy to the streets, children became his artistic signature ever since. 

Those colorful paintings of children made their way to Atlanta in 2015 when he painted a mural in East Village featuring two smiling boys dressed as carpenters holding a hammer and handplane. The double-door-sized mural displayed in the parking lot of what used to be an eccentric furniture store is still there to this day. The walls around it have changed, and the neighborhood has evolved into an eclectic one, but the bright light blue of the mural remains vibrant.

Ferror left his mark in Atlanta for the first time then, and the local art world welcomed him with open arms. Around that time, he met Hernandez, and in 2023, Ferror’s painting, depicting a Black girl looking in the mirror while wearing a yellow hat in the shape of a pineapple, was displayed in Nuestra Creación’s exhibit. 

Pictured, “Ancestral Flavors from Brazil” by Alex Ferror.

Hernandez is determined not to stop anytime soon. 

Each year, a single word shapes the theme of the exhibit. For 2025, Nuestra Creación takes on Ojalá (Hopefully in Spanish), “a word carried through generations, holding the weight of hope, longing, resistance, possibility. [It’s] rooted in both prayer and protest,” said Hernandez.

Using art as a powerful way to reclaim space, Hernandez’s ultimate goal is to open a permanent gallery for Nuestra Creación in Atlanta, providing artists from all sorts of underrepresented communities a space to tell their stories, be seen and preserve their cultural identities.  

“It’s not just about putting up murals or showing paintings,” said Hernandez. “It’s about community. Survival. Building platforms that remind our people that they are seen, supported and worthy.”

Experience more art by Latino muralists across Atlanta.

Daniela Cintrón is an award-winning journalist, editor, and producer passionate about storytelling at the intersection of food, art, and culture. She is the content manager and bilingual editor for Discover Atlanta and contributes to publications like the Los Angeles Times, Atlanta Magazine and Eater.