Jorge R. Guiterrez captures the heart of Mexican culture. Whether you experience his work on a cinema screen or on a gallery wall, his artistic world showcasing life, death, mythology, and pop culture will leave an unforgettable impression on you. Toothy grins radiate from the many calaveras sprinkled throughout each of his artworks; their presence both a celebration of life and a sobering reminder of what’s to come.
Mysterious masked wonders, better known as Lucha Libre, bridge the gap between past and present as they hold space for Aztec history whilst pushing Mexican wrestling into our cultural consciousness. Jorge’s works is a celebration of ever evolving culture. It raises a glass to how beautifully strange and contradictory life can be. His work is a multimedia party which I hope will live on eternally!
Jorge R. Gutierrez is a Mexican artist, animator, writer, director, producer, and voice actor best known for co-creating The Book of Life, El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, and Maya and the Three alongside his wife and muse Sandra Equihua.
Whilst Jorge was born in Mexico City, he grew up in Tijuana where he navigated his childhood with the difficulty of having undiagnosed autism and ADHD. Through every challenge he faced, art was always there alongside him and from a young age, he found comfort in cartoons and discovered a kinship with Disney’s iconic wooden boy Pinocchio. With a pencil and sketchbook in hand, Jorge navigated his youth knowing that he’d grow up to become a real artist. He attended CALARTS where he received his BFA and MFA in Experimental Animation under the tutelage of Jules Engel.
After graduating, Jorge set up his own production company Mexopolis with his wife Sandra where they have collaborated with companies including Sony Pictures, Warner Bros, Disney, Netflix, Cartoon Network, and Nickelodeon. In 2026, Jorge continues to wear many creative hats in his industry and is currently working on a string of new projects including a Speedy Gonzalez film and other animated projects with Disney and Netflix.
This interview was created in collaboration with La Luz de Jesus Gallery. For more information please visit their website.
Interview with Jorge R. Gutierrez
What draws you to the art of animation?
Animation is illegal magic. A kind of alchemy with images, sound, and movement. It’s my favourite art form because it includes so many others: sculpture, theater, music, painting, dance, architecture, and, of course, cinema.
It’s stealing fire from the art gods! It’s making skeletons sing, making luchadores and devils cry, making crazy love stories out of colour and light. As a Mexico City kid who grew up in Tijuana, cartoons felt like transmissions from another reality: loud, rebellious, impossible. It was like seeing dreams come alive.
I didn’t just want to watch them. I wanted to live inside them. Become them. Animation has allowed me to do that. It’s not a medium, it’s like a portal for me. And once you walk through it, reality starts feeling like the boring version.
You wear many creative hats; artist, animator, writer, director, producer, you even own your own production company. How do you juggle so many roles?
I’m happiest in chaos! Calm makes me nervous. Chaos means something interesting is about to happen. I try to follow in the path of my heroes who juggle a ton of disciplines, people like Guillermo del Toro, Tim Burton, Wes Anderson, and Miyazaki. They’re my North Stars.
My secret weapon is that I have autism and ADHD, and that’s allowed me to not only never be bored but to work on a ton of things—shorts, series, and movies—all at the same time. It drives the muse (my amazing artist/writer wife, Sandra Equihua) a little nuts, of course, but like I promised her when we met in high school: “You will never be bored if you stick with me, señorita!”
What does your creative process look like when working on film and televisions show compared to working on more personal projects? Do you approach them with a similar mindset?
I put my heart and soul into both, and frankly, I keep getting my heart broken, but I can’t wait to try again. You can take the boy out of Tijuana, but you can’t take the Tijuana out of the boy!
Hollywood studio work is building a cathedral with a thousand hands. For those, I try to be an architect and surround myself with a team of badasses.
Personal work is tagging that cathedral at midnight! If nobody’s a little uncomfortable, I’m probably not pushing hard enough. When I paint, it’s just me, no studio notes. Animation can take years, and sometimes it dies after years of development. Painting, I can finish in a day. That speed keeps me sane.
Both are sacred. Both are necessary. One teaches discipline and collaboration; the other keeps me brave. But the compass is always the same: humor, truth, and emotion. If it feels too safe, I’ve failed. Safe is just another word for forgettable.
What have you found the most rewarding aspect of your work as an artist?
When the work stops being mine and belongs to the world.
When a stranger says, “That family in The Book of Life… that’s my family.” When a kid sees themselves in El Tigre or Maya and the Three, a brown-skinned hero who looks like them, sounds like them, cries like them. That’s the real alchemy, turning something deeply personal into something communal. The more specific, the more universal.
That’s when you realize stories aren’t owned. They’re shared, and hopefully they evolve and inspire. We’re not inventing stories, we’re remembering them out loud. What a gift that is.
What is the most challenging aspect of your work as an artist?
It’s a cliché for a reason: keeping the soul intact.
There are a thousand ways a project can lose its spirit, exec notes, fear, compromise, exhaustion. Death by a thousand “creative suggestions.” The hardest part is protecting the weird, the specific, the culturally loud heartbeat of the thing… without becoming a tyrant. It’s a deadly dance.
Also, finishing. Finishing is war. A price is always paid. Ideas are cheap. Finishing costs blood.
Your work in inspired by Mexican pop and folk culture, noticeably I’ve seen a lot of Lucha Libre influence within your work. I’d love to learn a bit more about some of your personal favourite parts of your culture and how it’s influenced your art style!
Mexican culture is a beautiful contradiction. It’s death and laughter holding hands, and drinking tequila.
We turn skeletons into honored guests. We make saints glamorous and sinners poetic. Lucha Libre is our mythology in motion, masked gods battling for honor, legacy, and sometimes just pure chaos. It’s sacred and ridiculous at the same time. I love that. And for this, I will forever be a Meximalist!
I grew up surrounded by that intoxicating energy, Día de los Muertos altars, Aztec and Mayan ruins, Tijuana punk flyers, lowriders, religious kitsch, museum and street murals, Mexico City bootleg toys… all singing colour and endless meaning.
My work is just me remixing all of that into something I’m proud to shout to the world.
What do you hope people can take away with them after viewing your work, whether it be a painting or one of your animated projects?
I want them to smile, hopefully think, and more than anything, feel less alone.
The more I travel, the more connected I feel to Mexico. I want people to feel proud of where they come from, especially the messy parts. I want them to laugh, cry, call their abuelita, dance with their ghosts and skeletons.
And if they feel like their story matters? That their culture is worthy of myth? Then yeah… mission accomplished. If I can punch you in the heart and hug you at the same time, I’ve done my job.
You’re booked and busy working on various projects including a Speedy Gonzalez film, a new film with Netflix and an animated series for the Walt Disney Company. I’d love to take a moment to reflect on your career up to this point. How do you think your younger self would react knowing all that you’ve accomplished?
These were all the dreams of a chubby kid staring at the moon from his Tijuana apartment, dreaming of a life writing, painting and making cartoons. He’d think it’s too much.
That kid, writing and drawing in the margins of his schoolbooks, dreaming of Chupacabras monsters and luchador heroes, he’d look at my life today and say, “No way… IT ALL CAME TRUE!?!”
And then he’d grab me by the collar and say, “Don’t get comfortable, gordito. Don’t you ever get boring. And whatever you do… don’t forget where you come from.”
Honestly… I hope to die impressing that kid.
Jorge R. Gutierrez Social Media Accounts
Website | Instagram | Patreon | YouTube
