Regina Vargas: Love Letters to Mexico
Written by Bella Greenbacher
Published on September 17th, 2026
Working primarily in acrylic paint, Regina Vargas paints still life’s and architectural scenes rooted in Mexican motifs and built environments as a way to study and connect with her Mexican heritage. A fourth-generation painter, Vargas hangs her artwork in her home nestled amongst that of her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother.
Born in Mexico City, Vargas was constantly surrounded by creativity and beauty, not only within her family of artists, but also amongst the saturation, vibrancy, and warm aesthetic of the Mexican landscape. She is captivated by the use and celebration of color within daily life in Mexico. “Jugs of water are bright pink, even plastic bags,” she says, “those are the things I notice. That’s what makes the country so unique.” Her paintings serve to study this overlooked beauty and feature compositions meditating on ordinary objects like cooking pots, chairs, or bowls of peaches. She uses color and a meaningful attention to detail that transform objects into cultural relics with personalities of their own.
Now based in Brooklyn, Vargas visits Mexico often, sometimes traveling back five or six times a year. When she returns, she is captivated by the visual maximalism and saturation of the country, finding her greatest inspirations and artistic voice being profoundly rooted in her surroundings. “Art lives everywhere there,” she says, explaining that generations of preserved culture are ingrained in the rhythms of daily life. Color, beauty, and human touch are essential priorities.
Vargas doesn’t feel the same level of artistic inspiration living in the United States, but recognizes that she gained a deep passion for portraying Mexican culture and life because of her removal from it.
Vargas doesn’t feel the same level of artistic inspiration living in the United States, but recognizes that she gained a deep passion for portraying Mexican culture and life because of her removal from it. Her work centers around themes of memory and heritage, a visual study of Mexican culture and history informed by a sense of yearning. “I often feel like people might not notice how much you appreciate and love something until it’s no longer a part of your daily life.”
Vargas longs to keep Mexican culture a central pillar of her life and oftentimes fantasizes about what her practice would look like if she moved back. “While I think I could continue my practice if I moved to Mexico,” she says, “a big part of why I’m drawn to painting Mexican culture is to bring that beauty to New York and to an American audience.” She observes the lack of color and cultural context within the architecture and daily life of many contemporary urban landscapes and how this limits people to feel present and historically connected to the richness of life.
“We’ve moved towards efficiency, neutrality and durability. Inoffensive and clean cut. But then we lost a lot of human touch and historical context. There was a lot of personality that wasn’t preserved.”
Vargas appreciates the generations of art and culture preserved in areas of the world like Europe and Asia, which inspires communities to connect with their heritage and visual environment. She compares this visual priority to the contemporary urgency surrounding progress and utility. “There was a lot more personality in the 20th century,” she says, “Kitchens and cars were more colorful, even cellphones.” Vargas believes that contemporary life is missing this sense of creative expression and would greatly benefit from incorporating more color and beauty into daily life.
Her most recent series focuses on labor and workers in Mexico. This body of work is centered around the generations of hard-working people upholding Mexican culture: butchers, bakers, florists, service workers. Vargas portrays Mexican workers as hard-working and noble, recognizing the skill and pride they bring to everyday work. She dismantles inaccurate depictions in American media by offering a fuller and more dignified representation of Mexican workers.
“Mexico is color and richness and beauty and food and family and art. We would be so lucky to have its people in our country. There are shoe-shiners on every corner that have button-down shirts and slacks because they show up everyday with dignity and pride.”
Vargas approaches this new series, alongside the scope of her work, as thanking Mexican workers for preserving the beauty and culture of Mexico. She paints not only to connect with her heritage and family, but to practice appreciation and introduce this sense of appreciation to an American audience. She believes that if contemporary societies would incorporate more beauty and color into daily life, people would be able to find more common ground to bond over with strangers. If we all paid a little more attention to beauty, perhaps we would feel more connected to each other, and to life itself.
“If your commute consisted of more things that would make you stop and notice and appreciate, I think we would all be happier,” says Vargas, “It wouldn’t hurt to have a little color everywhere.”
Bella Greenbacher is a writer, editor, artist, and curator based between New York City and western Massachusetts. Holding a BFA from Concordia University Montréal, she has worked alongside journals and galleries such as Whitehot Magazine, The Michigan Daily, David Zwirner Gallery, and Bushwick Gallery. Her work explores the diversity of artistic topics, perspectives, and social structures of different places called home.